Brand new worlds largest floating crane failure.

[Parm]

Absolutely, 73 were reported to have died building the Forth rail Bridge: there are memorials at both ends to them, though they are quite recent.

Never intended to imply H&S had anything to do with this, we never let H&S near design calcs....would take too long to explain them to them

I totally agree, Wasn’t having a go at all. I’m a H&S bod. I say sincerely that I know nothing about design calculations what so ever.

 

[frank horton]

the scrap man will be happy..........

 

[addjunkie]

This may sound harsh, but in some oil industry office, folk will not be unhappy about that mishap. It looks like a heavy lift support ship, for lifting in big subsea modules offshore, but as prices are so low, deep water subsea stuff isnt good economics at the moment.
It will have been pre booked, so the dealys will mean some poor names at Lloyds insurance will end up paying out. And liquidated damages for delays paid others too.

And no matter how many layers of protection you put in place, failures still seem to happen, just the outcomes are not as severe as they were in victorian times.

 

[cardiffrob]

Check that hook for hacksaw marks???

 

[mtt.tr]

Isn't it funny how the Victorians built things that would last hundreds of years with no computers or health and safety
.

By trial, error and death. They did get things wrong

 

[Hood]

This may sound harsh, but in some oil industry office, folk will not be unhappy about that mishap. It looks like a heavy lift support ship, for lifting in big subsea modules offshore, but as prices are so low, deep water subsea stuff isnt good economics at the moment.
It will have been pre booked, so the dealys will mean some poor names at Lloyds insurance will end up paying out. And liquidated damages for delays paid others too.

And no matter how many layers of protection you put in place, failures still seem to happen, just the outcomes are not as severe as they were in victorian times.

It is for a wind farm.

 

[Hood]

https://www.energyvoice.com/otheren...ork-at-giant-scottish-wind-project-collapses/

 

[thinfourth]

It is for a wind farm.

I think the term wind farm should only really be used for where they grow baked beans

 

[mtt.tr]

I think the term wind farm should only really be used for where they grow baked beans

Like a protected title?

 

[Munkul]

So the hook snapped. All the design calculations in the world aren't going to save it at that point.

Any big crane with a serious counterbalance or counter tension setup like that would have done the same. In fact, plenty of incidents have happened like this.

Picture it... you're lifting 2000 tons (presumably most of that weight anyway). That means you have 2000 tons of opposing force.

The hook snaps, and all of a sudden becomes weightless. What does that 2000 tons of opposing force do? See exhibit A....

I'd be asking what sort of tests had been done to ensure the hook end forging was correct and without flaws... Could even be a design calc fault at this point, although unlikely... it's a ginormous hook Just needs to be forged out of the right material, without any flaws!

Not sure if they would x-ray or UT something like that before live tests? I would have thought that they would, for very low volume high performance cranes like that? But I don't know.

 

[thinfourth]

So the hook snapped. All the design calculations in the world aren't going to save it at that point.

Any big crane with a serious counterbalance or counter tension setup like that would have done the same. In fact, plenty of incidents have happened like this.

Picture it... you're lifting 2000 tons (presumably most of that weight anyway). That means you have 2000 tons of opposing force.

The hook snaps, and all of a sudden becomes weightless. What does that 2000 tons of opposing force do? See exhibit A....

I'd be asking what sort of tests had been done to ensure the hook end forging was correct and without flaws... Could even be a design failure at this point, although unlikely... it's a ginormous hook

Not sure if they would x-ray or UT something like that before live tests? I would have thought that they would, for very low volume high performance cranes like that? But I don't know.

hence the boat ended up at a silly angle as they will off been ballasting to counteract the lift

As to x-raying a casting that big

I don't even know if that would be possible

 

[Westfield-builder]

It was for a wind farm.

 

[Cuthy246]

My structures lecturer would always tell us anyone can run some software, but the engineers who get the big bucks are the ones who can say if the computer is right or not.

 

[Munkul]

hence the boat ended up at a silly angle as they will off been ballasting to counteract the lift

As to x-raying a casting that big

I don't even know if that would be possible

I know you can x-ray steel up to 500mm thick... not sure if this is a hard practical limit or just a power limitation of machines on the common market.

Looking around you're maybe right - assuming around 700mm diameter hook, it's going to take an exceptionally powerful x-ray. Probably not a practical thing to do, then.

In that case, all they can go on is representative sample testing... material tracability, etc... Whether it was a German or Chinese hook...

a clean break through the shank, like it looks, would indicate brittle failure, which would indicate poor or inadequate material quality full stop, rather than a flaw in the casting/forging anyway.

 

[sako243]

The Victorians didn't understand health and safety. They built everything big and then massively over engineered it

Years ago my company built a data logger that was used to do some testing on a couple of bridges in, I think, Newcastle One was built recently (as in a few years prior) and the other was a Brunellian bridge. British Steel weighed in a 3,000t train to ±10g for the job and spent the day driving it back and forth across these bridges. Something like 500km of strain gauges across hundreds of channels were attached to the bridge.

Conclusion - the bridge that had been engineered and built recently with a design life of X number of years (significantly more than it has been standing) was condemned. Brunel's bridge which was a couple of hundred years old was good for at least another couple of hundred. So yes it was massively over-engineered but then again it's lasted several hundred times longer.

 

[mtt.tr]

This shows the hook before,


https://vertikal.net/en/news/story/35316/5000-tonne-crane-collapses-during-test?acceptCookies=1

 

[Stingray]

Built under licence in china how these big companys mainly function these days in relation too the shipping industry. Crane will have been designed by liebherr and the design will then have been bought and subsequently built by a different company in china, they will change stuff in the design too make it thier own so one you have too go to them for parts and too it reduces the royalties they will have too pay too liebherr for using thier design.

On a side note liebherr dont know how too make cranes for maritime use. Have worked on a few container ships with them installed and they are a major head ache all hydarulic parts bar the pump and its motor are on the out side of the crane, usually made of cast iron or alluminium which just rots to a powder in a marine enviroment, and leak all the time. The cranes are so bad they stopped using them and they are only moved too get them out the way of the gantry cranes these days. Among other major issues.

We a have small 10Te provision crane on our lay barge which was built in Nantong, looks like a Palfinger, all paperwork from Palfinger (in China), when we were in South Africa we got Palfinger SA to do a small job on it and he said it was not a Palfinger but a Chinese copy, luckily we only lift a few dozen pallets of food with her every couple of weeks...

 

[bricol]

Computers have greatly helped progress...you can now make bigger mistakes faster and repeatedly.

To a visitor to our design office, when he asked for the benefits of 3D, I said we could make a better class of mistake, quicker.

For some reason, I'm not the go to guy for company tours . . .

 

[bricol]

I would hope it’s a forging not casting.

Perhaps incorrect heat treatment.

The Chinese are famous for making and selling junk at the highest level with no regard

The Germans have pulled off the biggest marketing scam of the last century by conning the world they’re the best

Although every time I've worked in Germany, they still seem to think the UK are = that "Made in Great Britain" still MEANS something.

 

[dyno-tron]

And no matter how many layers of protection you put in place, failures still seem to happen, just the outcomes are not as severe as they were in victorian times.

Very true, and the h&s people have the good sense to clear everyone out of the way before testing like this, demolitions etc.