A Decision Support System for Estimating Allowable Soil Bearing Capacity for Mobile Crane Work

Abstract

The use of modular construction burgeoned mobile cranes' impact on construction sites, which has led to the manufacturing of heavier modules with weights often measured in hundreds of tons. Because of the surge in module weight, mobile cranes are predominant, ensuring adequate ground stability under the lifting equipment since its debacle can have dire repercussions for the workers and the project. The traditional approach is to make use of timber/steel mats for ground stability. Before that, it is crucial to estimate the allowable soil bearing capacity as a prerequisite to reckon the compensation for deficient ground support. The crane rental companies' status quo approach collects this information from the client without incorporating mobile crane track/outrigger surface area (crawler crane track/mat, hydraulic crane outrigger mat). This contribution aims to develop a Visual basic computer application to determine soil's allowable soil bearing capacity for crane work. The developed application consolidates mobile crane footing area and computes allowable soil bearing capacity based on the soil data from a construction site's geotechnical reports. The developed application uses soil bearing capacity theorems (e.g., Terzaghi, Meyerhof, Hansen, and Vesic) for the calculations. The developed application will help practitioners estimate the allowable soil bearing capacity with the crane mat surface area to complement the information received from the clients.