To understand the forces required for the disassembly of tower crane structures the interaction forces between the various sections of the tower crane structure must be accurately modeled.
Initial work modeling the lift forces during tower crane disassembly due to side-pull was presented at the Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM) conference in July 2024 [1]. The presented approach modeled the normal component of the contact forces as a one-way spring-damper that only yielded forces when the surfaces were in contact. While the static frictional forces due to contact where modeled using a linear relation between force the the relative velocities of the surfaces over a small range of velocities.
Since that work was presented additional contact models have been investigated. Several models have been found that appear to more accurately depict contact forces during the impact of two surfaces; however, these works heavily focus on contact between spherical objects and are not appropriate for cases where the surfaces begin in contact, limiting the practicality of these approaches in modeling tower crane disassembly. Currently an approach that models both normal and tangential contact forces with a spring/damper pair, as seen in the figure below, is being investigated.
Simulations will be run to determine which of the two approaches is the most computationally efficient. Improved computational efficiency would increase the number of disassembly lift and collapse simulations that may be run. In addition to modeling contact between tower crane sections, this approach may also be expanded to model contact of debris with surfaces such as buildings or the ground.
Additional contact models will be investigated to determine if there is a more appropriate approach that may be implemented.