Out-of-Plane Stability Analysis for Crane Jib with Single Cable Considering Lateral Flexibility of the Cable Fixed Joint

The out-of-plane stability of crane jib is studied considering the lateral flexibility of the fixed joint. The analytical expression of the out-of-plane buckling characteristic equation for the crane jib with single cable is obtained by establishing the bending deflection differential equation of jib under the instability critical state with the method of differential equation. The equilibrium equation of the fixed point in the lateral direction is introduced to solve the differential equation besides the boundary conditions. The analytical results obtained agree very well with the finite element method (FEM) results. To consider the lateral flexibility of the cable fixed joint, a dimensionless stiffness coefficient measuring the lateral constraint was introduced to derive the out-of-plane buckling characteristic equation. The degeneration forms of the characteristic equation under the limit cases of zero lateral stiffness, infinite lateral stiffness are further discussed. And the influence of the lateral stiffness of fixed joint on the stability of jib is investigated. It is shown that the increase of the lateral stiffness will significantly improve the buckling load of the crane jib especially when the lateral stiffness is very small.