Fitness-For-Service Assessment and Life extensions of Meltshop Cranes

Abstract

High-capacity melt shop cranes exposed to harsh service environments can exhibit damages, such as cracking, during regular day to day operation and mostly towards end of design life. These damages can lead to equipment failure that will result in longer downtime, lost production and potential safety risks. In-depth thermal-structural assessments are a valuable tool for operators to characterize current condition and remaining life of equipment to develop a fundamental understanding of crane condition, informing future operations. This paper will present the modern approaches and benefits from several structural Fitness-For-Service (FFS) assessments of high-capacity melt shop cranes. The benefits from this approach are discussed considering established design-by-rule specifications where calculated stresses are based on elastic analysis (i.e., AIST TR6) with resulting insights, life extension recommendations, and benefits to operators presented.