Advanced structural health monitoring system for offshore cranes (CraneScan)

While cranes are used offshore they face heavy load operations up to 10,000t and environmental challenges (e.g. wind,vessel motion)that increase the risk of structural failures. A structural failure of a large crane unavoidably lead to serious damages or total collapses; such accidents are followed by high financial losses and serious injuries and / or fatalities. Examples like the collapse on a platform in the UK sector of the North Sea (2016) highlight the need for new solutions to implement a predictive maintenance of offshore cranes. Current inspections, performed once/twice a year are dangerous, time consuming and expensive. The CraneScan project will address 4 key needs: enhanced safety, downtime reduction, capital cost reduction and insurance cost reduction. CraneScan will demonstrate an innovative, reliable, cost-effective structural health monitoring system (SHM) that will continuously monitor the crane remotely and automatically detect structural integrity failures before they lead to failures. If deployed to all cranes CraneScan will save the global crane industry €375 million annually and significantly reduce the failure of cranes by 25%.