Digital Twin of Crane
Abstract
This master thesis aims to make a digital twin of a crane for structural monitoring. A digital twin is any physical structure or mechanical system (asset) that is monitored and inspected by a digital model. Fedem, which is a simulation program for dynamic mechanisms, is used for the digital twin. One of the main tasks is to synthesize an inverse method to capture the load applied to the crane. This is done by detecting the strain in the outer boom, consisting of bending strain and normal strain induced by the applied load. With use of equilibrium equations a mathematical model estimates the load based on these strains. Strain gauges are mounted to the crane and the data are used for the estimations. In a static test the load is estimated with a deviation less than 2\% from the applied load. Dynamic testing also shows promising results. The other main task is to benchmark the responses of the digital model. Strain gauges on the crane and virtual strain gauges on the model are used to compare the responses. A standard 3D test runs is used as a basis for the bechmarking. The Fedem model is tuned to make the response more similar to the physical crane. The results of the benchmarking shows that there are still work to be done on the model before the responses are within a acceptable margin.