Exploring the Impact of Wind Loads on Tower Crane Operation

The construction industry continues to be one of the industries with the highest accident rate. Tower cranes have always been the central component of many construction operations. With recent advancements in tower cranes, more efforts have been made for their safe operation. The impact of natural environmental factors on the operation of tower cranes cannot be ignored, especially the impact of the wind load, which can be found in construction regulations worldwide. Therefore, a large number of recent studies have focused on exploring different approaches to improving the impact of loads, such as improved feedback controllers and collocated sensors. However, there are few studies on the impact of the flexible cable pendulum system under wind load. To quantify the impact in this paper, first, the swing model of the hanging and the model of sling fluctuation are proposed as the base. Second, the flexible cable pendulum model is designed for the impact of tower cranes under wind load. By field experiments, the applicability of the model in practical use is analyzed. A case of the Crane Beach Hydropower Station is investigated as a demonstration. With MATLAB programming, the variation in the hanging impulse with wind speed is shown, indicating that the maximum wind speed should be 12 m/s if the factors that people can control are considered. When considering the factors that can be harmful to humans, the maximum wind speed is 17 m/s. With the proposed model, the impacts of wind load on tower crane operation can be quantified without actual deployment, offering a more straightforward quantitative tool for safe regulations and engineering management.