Structural Analysis of Continuous Ship Unloader

Abdul Wasy†, Atta Ur Rehman*, Hye-Soo Kim*, Sun-Ho Ha*, Jung-Il Song*

Key Words : CSU, Bulk Transportation, Static analysis, Structure Optimization

Abstract

Continuous ship unloader (CSU) is used for uninterrupted transportation of material. Small scales to huge
CSU structures are being used in process industries, power plants and harbors, depending upon transportation
material stream rate. This study focused on design optimization after three-dimensional modeling in CATIA
and finite element structural analysis of big CSU structure in ANSYS Workbench. For detailed analysis study,
the big structure was divided in two portions. One is the upper section, which can be rotated on center post
and it also facilitates translatory motion of sea leg. This section includes mast top, front tension bars, rare
tension bar, mast frame and mast front. While the lower section rests on the earth and supports the upper part
and also helps in transportation through conveyer belt. This section includes, center post, portal grinder, sea
side and land side supports. The whole structure deals with heavy loads and high multi axial moments. Hence
the actual structure was compared with optimized design and its was concluded that, optimized design have
less stresses and deflections under same applied conditions in comparison of actual model.

unload ships at constant handling rate with dust free

1. Introduction method and many companies are registering CSU patents
but few are manufacturing.. The functionality of CSU is
Continuous Ship Unloaders have been successfully complex, because it facilitate the three dimensional
employed in bulk material transportation, loading and loading and unloading.[2]
unloading operations at harbors, in mill yard for raw The application of loads and boundary conditions
materials iron ore, at coal terminals for coal-fired power consumes considerably a large time which could be
plants etc. minimized by developing a programmatic interface with
As an alternative of conventional grab bucket the FEA software[3]. Sometimes, the engineering and
unloaders, CSU have higher efficiency, less labor cost, design problems become critical due to very small
energy savings, smooth operation, less noise and dust. history data and limited experience because CSU
[1] Now a days, dust reduction is an important available for different size, features and handled material.
constraint: for example, in Piombino (Italy), two grab Still, each new CSU is really a prototype and the
unloaders were replaced by CSU to fulfill ecological computational approach is the only way to evaluate its all
laws. In a CSU, the material is transported through possible capability. it is necessary to compare the
buckets in the elevator which remained protected from practical experiments and computational approach to
the wind, the dust comes only from the ship holder this is accurately find the potential capability of new designs
a drastic improvement in comparison with grab having different capabilities and improvements.
unloaders. The drawbacks of CSU includes their This detailed study is concerned with the 3-
complex mechanics and polluted environment of lower dimensional modeling and finite element structural
part of elevator which may destroy the hydraulic analysis of complex CSU structure, The big structure is
actuators. divided in two sections. One is the upper section, which
The objective of this study is to analyze the structural can be rotated on center post and it can also give
behaviors of CSU with computational approach. CSU translatory motion to sea leg. The lower section rests
technology is widely being adopted due of their ability to on the earth and supports the upper structure.
The whole structure deals with heavy loads and high
multi axial moments. So in study, the structural analysis
* Jungil Song, Changwon National University, Department is performed under applied conditions to predict the
of Mechanical Engineering structural strength in service life. The geometry design
E-mail : [email protected] was also optimized to reduce the stress concentration.
† Changwon National University, Department of The comparison of results demonstrate the stress
Mechanical Engineering reduction up to 700MPa on sharp edges.
* Changwon National University, Department of
Mechanical Engineering

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 2. Three-Dimensional Modeling of CSU 3. Finite Element Structural Analysis of CSU
The upper structure have cylindrical supports
The basic problem in CSU design is the definition of
at ends of Mast Frame and front tension bars, welded
size and shape of the buckets, satisfying the required
supports at front mast and lower structure is fixed from
material capacity. The difficulty is to calculate the filling
bottom at fur different locations as shown in fig. 3.
factor of bucket. The handling capacity of a CSU is
1
obviously proportional to the mean filling factor, at given
bucket volume and the elevator chain speed. 5
Techint-Italimpianti has designed an innovative
geometry for the elevator excavation part based on a
three DOF articulated mechanism. Techint Italimpianti is 3 4
building for ILVA (Taranto) the biggest CSU of the world,
2
with a capacity of 7200 t/h; another great advantage is
the constancy of the capacity, that allows to reduce the
belt conveyor size.[2] the upper section of elevator is 6
quite complex and contains several drive units. It is
necessary to oversize the main structure to maintain 7
stability at high flow rate and definitely it will increases 9
the machine cost.
The design of the CSU is based on the results
obtained from a test model which are presented in this
8
paper. CSU structure was 3-dimensionally modeled
according to the drawings provided by manufacturing
company in software CATIA (Computer Aided Three-
dimensional Interactive Application). CATIA is used for
3-dimensional modeling of engineering structures, Key: 1- Mast Top, 2- Front Tension Bars, 3-Front Mast, 4- Mast
mechanical systems, assembly designs and animations Frame, 5-Rear Tension Bar, 6- Center Post, 7- Portal Grinder, 8-Sea
[4] Side Support, 9- Land Side Support
The upper section contains total 13 parts including Fig. 2 . Applied Constraints on CSU structure
Mast Top Front Tension Bars, Front Mast, Rear Tension The forces were applied along the bars directions.
Bar and Pin joints. The lower section consists of central The ands of front tension bars and front mast are fixed
post, portal grinder, sea side and land side. The following while rare tension bar may have translation. The gravity
fig. 2 presents the different part of CSU structure. condition was also applied to analyze the effects. The
The mast top part is the heart of upper section which applied constrains are presented in Table 1 in high
bear all the stress during operation. the isometric view is compact manner. All the forces, counter and anti-counter
shown in fig. 1. The rare tension bar accommodate moments acting in same axis are calculated and applied
counter weights while front tension bars face high stress ass single constrain to simplify the simulation. The net
because sea leg is attached on this side. the upper section forces and moments includes the contribution of
is rested on center post and can turn around vertical axis. structure weight, load distributions, multi-axial
the land side support is made of vertical frames. the moments, wind effect, belt conveyer loads and its
portal grinder is made of heavy stiffeners to resist and supports etc
deformation under high loads and moments
4. Results and Discussions
4.1 Upper Section
The complete structure was analyzed under the given
conditions if four different cases. the applied forces are
given in Table 3 for each case, There structure is unsafe
due to stress concentrations exceeds the material
property at three different locations which are elaborated
below. So the structure can be made safe by easy
amendments of sharp corners into fillets. Fig. 3 shows
Fig. 1. Isometric View of Mast Top Part the stress distribution in upper section of the CSU
structure. the details of stress and deflection distribution
on each part is given in table 4 and Table 5 respectively.

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 Fig. 3 Stress Distribution on Upper Section Fig. 6 Stress Distribution on Lower Section of CSU

The following fig. 4 represents the high stress 4.2.1 Sea Side Support
concentration at the interface of plate end and fillet arc Stress distribution for sea side support is shown in
due to high stretch produce by high tension. These fig 7. The normal value is 163.23 MPa while there is
stresses can be reduced by adjusting the pad thickness stress concentration on some bends which is maximum
and appropriate length of cover plate. 326 MPa. Hence the maximum stress value is under safe
design.

Fig. 4 Stress Distribution on Top Mast Part

Joint ever bear high stresses. The maximum stress
concentration appears on the upper fillet joint of rear
tension bar due to turning motion of joints under high
loads as shown in fig 5. This fillet can be redesigned Fig. 7 Stress distribution for sea side support
either by adjusting the arc dimension or by using
addition metallic piece at the fillet edge to reduce the 4.2.2 Land Side Support
stresses. The stress distribution for the land side support is
shown in fig 8. There are sharp corners at intersection of
Vertical frames with horizontal plate. There is small
stress concentration but the software predicts the
maximum stress concentration on sharp edges of vertical
plates in this section
The following figure shows the high stress
concentration on corner, which exceeds beyond the
materials properties on extreme working loads. All the
load of upper section and transportation material act on
the center post. So there is maximum deflection on that
point. When the central structure deflects downward the
vertical plates resist deflection. These sharp corners tend
to penetrate in the horizontal plate. This cause high stress
concentration on sharp corners. By modifying the sharp
edges into the round fillets, the stress concentration can
Fig. 5 Stress Concentration on Fillet Joint be reduced. the comparison of results mentioned that 700
MPa stress concentration can be reduced by changing the
4.2 Lower Section sharp edges into to round fillets analyzed under same
Von Misses stresses and deflections were evaluated environmental conditions as shown in the following
under the applied conditions. The stress distribution on figure 9.
complete lower part is shown in fig 6. the stress
distribution can be seen in joints

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 Fig. 8 Stress Concentration on Sharp Edges Fig. 9 Stress Concentration on Sharp Edges

Table: 1 Applied Loads (N)

Case/part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 6.074e+6 2.32e+6 5.27e+5 -1.3e+5 -5.638e+6 -5.391e+6 1.137e+7

Table: 2 Stress in different parts (MPa)

Case/part Most Top Front tension Bar Rare Tension bar
*o
Min High St con Min High St con Min High St con
1 66.43 132.32 593.57 84.93 166.89 740.54 51.05 230.09 409.1

Table 3 Results for Deflections (MPa)

Case/part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 79.34 89.26 49.59 49.595 49.59 89.26 49.59

Table 4 Stress values on lower section of CSU Structure

Part name Average High Stress Max Stress Concen. Max
Stress (MPa) (MPa) Deflection
(MPa) (mm)
Over All structure 163.23 326 1984.2 123
Land Side support 213.71 384 1923 11.26
Sea Side Support 42.203 84.407 379.83 10.905

5. Conclusions
The complex CSU structure is analyzed under given Merkuriev & Mosca Eds., Sept. 16-18, , Genoa, Italy,
constrains. The high stress concentration appeared on
fillet joint of front tension bars and sharp edges of land pp. 278-283 (QGIS)
side support. The whole weight acts downward on center (3) M. Rajasekaran, J. L. Jusleen Sibi, P. Jeyenth,
post, which produce maximum deflection in center of "Structural Analysis of the Ship Unloader Using
portal grinder. That is the reason, the sharp corners of
vertical frame structure of land side support tends to Radioss" , FLSmidth Private Limited, Chennai, India
penetrate in horizontal plates. The possible solution is (4) Munawar Iqbal et al. 2012, "Design modification in
recommended in discussion for each problem. The rotor blade of turbo molecular pump", Nuclear
comparison of results suggests that, by changing sharp
Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section
edges into fillet design, upto 700 Mpa stress is reduced
for same conditions, which is a big achievement for such A: Volume 678, Pages 88–90
a big and complex structure

References

(1) Kobayashi, T, 1985, "The Mitsubishi Continuous

Ship Unloader", Bulk Solids Handling, 5, p. 529
(2) C. Ferretti, L. Bruzzone, 1999, "Proc. of The
International Workshop on Harbour, Maritime &
Industrial Logistics Modelling and Simulation",

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