Manufacturing sustainability and reengineering analysis of a crane boom member

Nowadays the demands of the society force companies producing cranes to employ high productivity fabrication techniques and to design them with reduced weight and optimum structural integrity. The possible measures for this are to introduce high strength materials, to apply weld and/or surface improvement technologies and to utilise high productivity manufacturing technologies. High-strength materials enable allowable stress levels to be increased and section thickness reduced accordingly. The main objective in this master’s thesis is to know the benefits obtained due to reconsidered design of the crane’s members. This process consists in three basic aspects: • Change material, from Domex 900 to Weldox 1100. • Reduce thickness, from 6 mm to 4 mm. • Change welding method, from TIG to Laser-MIG and from one weld to two welds. To explain this, the elaboration method of a crane member (3 m of length, 0.4 m of height and 0.2 m of width) has been studied, since the steel sheets are received until the member is ready to work like a crane component. All the steps are explained in this report. At the end, the economical benefits for the final customers are studied.Validerat; 20101217 (root