Paper Title :CFD Simulation of the Collapsed Crane in Holy Makkah

Author :Mohamed Farouk, Ehab Mlybari

Article Citation :Mohamed Farouk ,Ehab Mlybari , (2017 ) " CFD Simulation of the Collapsed Crane in Holy Makkah " , International Journal of Mechanical and Production Engineering (IJMPE) , pp. 54-57, Volume-5,Issue-7

Abstract : The most catastrophic accident of collapsing tower cranes occurred in 2015 in the third Holy Harm expansion. This case can be considered as a unique incident for different reasons such as the huge number of victims and the rotation direction of the main crane arm. The main objective of this research is to check if the selected location of the tower crane contributed on the collapsing the tower crane due to the wind storm or not, while determining the actual wind force acting on the tower crane just before its collapse is beyond the scope of this research. Two Computational Fluid Dynamics “CFD” models have been developed to achieve the main objective. The first model comprises the actual terrain, the main buildings surrounding the crane and the tower crane, where virtual approximate dimensions of the collapsed crane have been assumed. The second model studies the wind forces acting on the virtual tower crane in an open area. The Saudi building code was used to develop the wind profile in both models. The numerical models comprise nearly 2.8 & 0.4 million tetrahedral elements respectively. The study indicates that the crane was placed in a wind corridor and the selection of the crane location in the Holy Harm is considered one of the factors contributed to the collapse of the tower crane. Thus, wind model is recommended to be developed in the selection of the working location of cranes in some special cases such as the Holy Harm and the prophet Mosque. Keywords - CFD, aerodynamic, tower crane, wind corridor & wind effects

Type : Research paper

Published : Volume-5,Issue-7

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