Development Trend of Tower Crane Safety

(I) The State's Attention is Continuously Increasing, and Digital Technology is Continuously Improving

The development of safety protection devices for tower cranes in my country began in the late 1950s, and has mainly gone through mechanical, electronic simulation, digital and microcomputer control forms. Due to the late start, the technical level is relatively low. In the early days, it was mainly focused on safety devices such as lifting weight overload limiters, torque limiters, amplitude and height limiters, and could only monitor the data of tower crane operation.

With the continuous development of science and technology and the increasing attention of the government and enterprises, some policies have been introduced one after another. GB 5144-2006 "Safety Regulations for Tower Cranes" clearly stipulates that tower cranes must be equipped with monitoring and safety protection devices. At present, some provinces and cities have enforced it. As the role of the safety monitoring management system continues to be reflected, it will become a trend to fully popularize the safety management system for tower cranes.

Products that assist in ensuring the safety of tower cranes have emerged on the market. Nowadays, a large number of tower cranes are equipped with "tower crane safety monitoring and management systems" to monitor the actual working conditions of tower cranes in real time; but currently only Shandong Dazheng's "Tower Crane Safety Monitoring and Management System 4.0" has the functions of personnel management, working condition data, video monitoring, lifting monitoring and tower crane structure data analysis, which can monitor whether the driver's operation is standardized and whether there are abnormalities in the tower crane structure, and can issue a warning of major hidden dangers 30 days in advance, so as to ensure the safety of tower cranes in all aspects.

(II) Tower cranes equipped with safety monitoring and management systems will be fully popularized

Tower cranes are equipped with safety monitoring and management systems, not only because of the rigid requirements of policies, but also because of the needs of product development itself. The market needs "super safe tower cranes", which not only require tower cranes to be "intrinsically safe" when leaving the factory, but also require tower cranes to be "safe in use" when applied in the market. Tower cranes equipped with safety monitoring and management systems can achieve "super safe tower cranes". What are the characteristics of the latest tower crane safety monitoring and management system?

1. Intelligence

Intelligence is the trend of the development of the times. Smart phones have become popular, and smart tower cranes are no longer a dream. The tower crane safety monitoring and management system can make the intelligence level of tower cranes a qualitative improvement, and the safety of tower cranes will also be greatly improved. At present, Shandong Dazheng's tower crane safety monitoring and management system 4.0 product has driving instruments, hidden danger warning, video module, performance monitoring, personnel identification, space limit, lifting monitoring, data recording, Beidou positioning, remote operation and maintenance, safety assessment and other functions.

The application of tower crane safety monitoring and management system to tower cranes has the following advantages:

(1) The accuracy of each limit control of the tower crane is greatly improved.

(2) The operator can view the tower crane operation in real time, and can accurately understand the weight of the hoisted object, lifting torque, spatial position and other working data through a display.

(3) It has "fault tolerance" and "limit" functions, which can alarm the dangerous actions of the tower crane and automatically terminate the lifting program to avoid dangerous tower crane operations.

(4) The tower crane can be monitored anytime and anywhere through mobile terminals such as mobile phones and computers.

2. Informatization

The collection and application of information is the essential technology of the tower crane safety monitoring and management system. How to comprehensively collect the whole domain information of the tower crane and do a good job of data transmission and application is the key technology for the upgrading of the tower crane safety monitoring and management system.

Shandong Dazheng's tower crane safety monitoring system uses a combination of application technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence, and information collection and analysis. It collects the working and operating status of tower cranes through hardware systems, uploads the status data to the remote management platform based on remote communication technology, and performs data analysis and calculation to realize the informatization of tower cranes, including tower crane information, driver information, operation instruction information, electrical system response information, mechanism action information, tower crane operation information, and tower crane dynamic response information. Through the Internet of Things technology, the collected tower crane operation data and operating status are transmitted to the server in real time. All operating parameters during the tower crane operation are automatically stored and recorded by the system, providing a scientific basis for safety management and accident judgment.

At the same time, the system conducts a comprehensive analysis of the collected tower crane data through big data and in-depth learning, and can conduct an operational safety assessment for each tower crane. It realizes risk assessment and classification of tower cranes, assessment of tower crane health and life status, quantitative evaluation of drivers, and 30-day advance warning to ensure the safe operation of tower cranes.

3. Visualization

From a macro perspective, the tower crane safety monitoring and management system is part of the tower crane automation system. It is equivalent to the "driving instrument" of the tower crane. The tower crane driver can accurately monitor the weight of the tower crane's hoisting objects, lifting torque, spatial position and other working data through a display.

Technicians can make full use of the large amount of data collected during the use of the tower crane to verify whether the initial design requirements of the tower crane are met. These large amounts of tower crane usage data have also further enriched the experimental database when designing the tower crane.
Just as cars have dashboards, tower cranes also have "operating instruments", which will become a trend.

(III) Artificial intelligence upgrade applications to fill the gaps in safety monitoring

At present, most tower crane safety monitoring and management products on the market cannot monitor and predict the structure of the tower crane. As we said in the above accident statistics, the main reason for the final collapse of the tower crane is the structural damage of the tower crane, which means that there is a big gap in the safety monitoring of the tower crane.

Professor Song Shijun of Shandong Jianzhu University conducted in-depth research on this as early as 2008, striving to fill this gap. Professor Song Shijun and his expert team organically combined applied mathematics, graphics, information data, information science analysis and other methods, and used artificial intelligence and algorithm upgrades to create the "Tower Crane Dynamic Graph", also known as the "Tower Crane Damage Graph". The "Tower Crane Dynamic Graph" fills the gap in tower crane structure monitoring, and at the same time realizes the diagnosis of tower crane structure and driver behavior. It can "discover major safety hazards of tower cranes 30 days in advance", which is of great historical significance. Technicians can make full use of the large amount of data collected during the use of tower cranes to verify whether the initial design requirements of tower cranes are met. These large amounts of tower crane usage data have also further enriched the experimental database when designing tower cranes.
Just as cars have dashboards, tower cranes also have "operating instruments", which will become a trend.

(III) Artificial intelligence upgrade application to fill the gap in safety monitoring

Currently, most tower crane safety monitoring and management products on the market cannot monitor and predict the structure of tower cranes. When we talked about the accident statistics above, the main reason for the final collapse of tower cranes was due to structural damage to tower cranes, which means that there is a big gap in tower crane safety monitoring.

Professor Song Shijun of Shandong Jianzhu University conducted in-depth research on this as early as 2008, striving to fill this gap. Professor Song Shijun and his expert team organically combined applied mathematics, graphics, information data, information science analysis and other methods, and used artificial intelligence and algorithm upgrades to create the "Tower Crane Dynamic Graph", also known as the "Tower Crane Damage Graph". The "Tower Crane Dynamic Graph" fills the gap in tower crane structure monitoring, and at the same time realizes the diagnosis of tower crane structure and driver behavior. It can "discover major safety hazards of tower cranes 30 days in advance", which is of great historical significance. The "Tower Crane Dynamic Graph" is to do a "CT check" for the tower crane. It can analyze and express the health status information of the tower crane, such as the tower crane hoisting situation, the driver's operation situation (level), the health of the tower crane, and the environmental impact.

The "Tower Crane Dynamic Graph" can also be said to be an "electrocardiogram" for the tower crane. Every operation trajectory of the tower crane driver is recorded in real time, and every corresponding data of the tower crane structure is also recorded in real time. The expert team uses data mining, information processing, and feature matching with the theoretical atlas library to determine the damage status and degree of the tower crane and find major hazards of the tower crane.

As of May 30, 2021, Shandong Dazheng has established 24,357 atlases. With the gradual enrichment of the atlas library, the dynamic and continuous hazard source identification and evaluation process is realized by applying this technology, making it possible to comprehensively, fully, and accurately identify on-site hazards.