Design and Analysis of Fabrication Cum Transportation Frame

Abstract

A frame is used in manufacturing process for supporting the components to join them together to fabricate the complete job. The purpose of this project is to design a Fabrication cum Transportation Frame which will be used to assemble the parts of Lower Cylinder in Temporary Workshop and then transport the complete assembly to Tokamak Pit on the same frame. The frame has to be rigid enough to sustain the dead weight of job and other equipments’ and the combination of horizontal and vertical load in case of any seismic activity. The frame will be kept on the stools because the Lower Cylinder along with support structure and frame will be transported to Tokamak Pit via Self Propelled Modular Transport (SPMT) vehicles. So the design of stool is to be done such that there is sufficient space for entry and exit of SPMT vehicles. In order to allow the free movement of SPMT under the frame, the proper positioning of stools is another important aspect. The handling of stools under the frame is very difficult as there is limitation of space and stools will be bulky. So deciding the minimum number of stools, keeping in mind the floor bearing capacity, and deciding their proper location under the frame, such that it does not become stress raiser in frame or the job, is another challenge. The manual calculations for the conceptualized design of frame is done and checked against the results of static analysis carried out using finite element software and are found within allowable limits of stress. Also the variation of results obtained by analytical calculations and finite element analysis were within acceptable limits.