Elastoplastic FEM analysis of earthquake response for the field-bolt joints of a tower-crane mast

Safety measures for tower cranes are extremely important among the seismic countermeasures at highrise building construction sites. In particular, the collapse of a tower crane from a high position is a very serious catastrophe. An example of such an accident due to an earthquake is the case of the Taipei 101 Building (the author was the project director), which occurred on March 31, 2002. Failure of the bolted joints of the tower-crane mast was the direct cause of the collapse. Therefore, it is necessary to design for this eventuality and to take the necessary measures on construction sites. This can only be done by understanding the precise dynamic behavior of mast joints during an earthquake. Consequently, we created a new hybrid-element model (using beam, shell, and solid elements) that not only expressed the detailed behavior of the site joints of a tower-crane mast during an earthquake but also suppressed any increase in the total calculation time and revealed its behavior through computer simulations. Using the proposed structural model and simulation method, effective information for designing safe joints during earthquakes can be provided by considering workability (control of the bolt pretension axial force and other factors) and less construction cost. Notably, this analysis showed that the joint behavior of the initial pretension axial force of a bolt is considerably reduced after the axial force of the bolt exceeds the yield strength. A maximum decrease of 50% in the initial pretension axial force under the El Centro N-S Wave (v(max) = 100 cm/s) was observed. Furthermore, this method can be applied to analyze the seismic responses of general temporary structures in construction sites.