[Discussion] How would you, as a mech engineer, solve the problem of crane maintenance due to operational stress.

Context -> Problem Statement -> Who are we

Context: Cranes are used extensively in industry. Currently, cranes are equipped with several fail-safe mechanisms that prevent unsafe operation. However, these measures are not fail-proof. Continuous monitoring of the crane's condition could be a different approach to this. For example, one could measure the strain that the equipment is subject to daily. This will provide an indication to the impact of daily operations on the health of the crane.

Problem Statement: Construction technology companies (eg. Surbana and Keppel in Singapore) are interested to develop a strain monitoring solution that is easy to retrofit on existing cranes. The solution should focus on accurate strain measuments of different components in the crane. Ideally, the solution will provide wireless communications for real-time/on-demand monitoring. Solutions can start by measurig the hinges - the most stress-heavy components (however, that is just a suggestion).

Who are we: My team and I are university students. Recently, we were looking for a problem to solve for a startup program. However, the problems we found online were either too general (eg. Air pollution) or specific, but out of our fields (eg. the crane problem statement above). Yet, we realised that engineers/scientists/professionals on the web might have great ideas on how to go about solving these. Hence, we are trying to see if we can tap on the collective smarts of intelligent subreddits to come up with solutions to more bespoke problems. The bottom line is that we are trying to find ideas which can be developed. If we can't take the solution forward, hopefully students and entrepreneurs in that particular field can come across it when searching for problems and see if they can take it forward.

We truly appreciate the time you've taken to read and the input you provide :)

submitted by /u/Sadmanray
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