Derrick Crane Steel Support

The project involved the structural design of the steel supports for a heavy-duty derrick crane mounted on the top level of the building. The major challenge included transferring the huge crane reactions down to the suspended slab. This was solved by anchoring the base plate of the bespoke derrick crane support as close to the column as possible.

This allowed the reduction of the stresses in the slab, although additional punching shear forces were induced in the columns. The punching shear stresses around the columns were checked and additional propping were recommended as necessary.

The structural design of the derrick crane support was performed in CSI SAP2000. The connections were designed using Limcon and Idea Statica. Steel-to-steel connections are bolted and steel-to-concrete connections used post-fixed threaded anchors. Due to the dynamic nature of loading, with crane reactions repeatedly going from compression to tension, slip-critical bolted connections were used.