DYNAMIC DRAGLINE MODELING AND BOOM STRESS ANALYSIS

Draglines are massive and expensive excavators used for primary excavation in strip mining operations. Inefficient use of draglines may cause production losses, increased unexpected downtimes, and even catastrophic damages. Understanding the dynamic behavior of the machine under extreme operating conditions will ensure dragline longevity, minimized maintenance cost with significant benefits to the industry. This book focuses on the development and implementation of dragline dynamic modeling and simulation using kinematics, dynamics and numerical modeling. The research findings showed that computer modeling and simulation provides a tool for evaluating the full-scale design of a system without building time-consuming and costly physical prototypes. This research endeavor is a pioneering effort to provide contributions, knowledge and understanding into the efficient dragline excavation with effective monitoring of stress and machine longevity and also contributes to existing knowledge and advances the frontiers in dragline excavation engineering using kinematics, dynamic and numerical modeling and simulation.