Automated method for checking crane paths for heavy lifts in industrial projects

At present, industrial projects are constructed primarily using a prefabricated approach. The modules are produced in an off-site facility and transported on transport trailers to the construction site where they are lifted by mobile cranes. One of the keys to the success of modular industrial projects is efficient crane planning, which includes path checking to find whether or not a crane has a feasible path through which to lift a module over obstructions in a congested plant. However, due to the large number of lifts, the manual path-checking practice is quite tedious and prone to error. In light of this problem, this paper proposes a methodology for automatically checking the lift paths for industrial projects. The proposed methodology simplifies and represents the three-dimensional site layout using project elevations. For each elevation, the crane feasible operation range (CFOR) is calculated based on the crane's capacity and clearances, as well as site constraints. The pick area (PA) is calculated by subtracting the ground obstruction areas from the CFOR. The relative positions of the module's set point, the CFOR, and the PA are checked to determine the feasibility of the lift path on each elevation, as well as the project elevation combination. This approach has been fully automated for path checking of entire sites, and the results are responsive to site changes over time as a project progresses. This proposed methodology is generic and thus can be easily applied to check lift paths for entire industrial plants or similar projects.