Numerical response of bridge cranes subjected to repeated shocks during an earthquake: Implicit / explicit multi-time scale co-simulation for contact dynamics

Bridge cranes are hoisting appliances located overhead in buildings. They are used to handle very heavy and sometimes critical loads. During an earthquake, a bridge crane may be subjected to multiple impacts between wheels and rails. These impacts can cause significant damage to the structure leading to a fall of the handled load or the bridge crane itself. Therefore, the qualification of such equipment, subjected to an earthquake, is very important. Currently, this qualification is based on static methods. These methods assume a purely linear behavior of the bridge cranes, which leads to a very conservative forces. Consequently, the bridge cranes manufacturers are sometimes unable to design the equipment from the over-estimated efforts provided by the static methods. The aim of this work is to study the dynamic response of a bridge crane during an earthquake by taking into account the geometric and material non-linearities. In order to model such phenomena, a time-history dynamic analysis with a multi-scale approach is performed. To take into account the high frequency aspect of the impacts between wheels and rails, a Lagrange explicit contact/impact time integrator is proposed. This work has also led to the development of an explicit-implicit HATI (Heterogeneous Asynchronous Time Integrator) for contact/impact dynamics. This method allows us to adopt an explicit contact/impact time integrator in the contact area and an implicit time integrator with a coarse mesh in the rest of the domain. Finally, a co-simulation demonstrator between Cast3M and Europlexus softwares is set up to show the very significant gain in computation time for a three-dimensional finite element model of an industrial bridge crane. (author)