Development of Expert System for Tower Cranes

The paper is concerned with application to develop the expert system, which structural analysis and design process for tower cranes. The system is organized into three groups. One is pre-processor for creating input data files, another is `model former' which combines knowledge-base with inference engine for automatic generating structural analysis models, a third is application group for final analysis checks. In this study, geometric subroutine of `model former' designates node positions, nodes, elements numbers and element types. Load data subroutine computes weight of tower crane and device, slewing force, cargo load, wind force form rules or equations in knowledge-base. Also, Property and boundary subroutine applies element properties and boundary conditions to suitable elements and nodes. Design and analysis expert system for tower crane integrates these subroutine, `model former' and pre-processor. RBR(Rule-Base Reasoning) was adopted for a reasoning strategy of this expert system. And this expert system can produce structural analysis model and data, which can be used in ordinary structural analysis program (SAP, ADINA or NASTRAN, etc.). In this paper, this expert system produces format of the analysis model data, which are used in MSC/NASTRAN. The main discussions included in the paper are introduction of the tower crane and structural analysis, composition of the design expert system for tower crane and structural analysis using the expert system.