Automatic Planning for Cable Crane Operations in Concrete Dam Construction

Cable cranes serve as critical lifting equipment in large-scale construction projects such as dam construction, bridge building, and mining. Particularly in concrete dam construction, cable cranes are the preferred equipment for transporting concrete due to their flexible spatial moving capacity and large-span coverage. However, because of the narrow dam construction site, the intensive and concurrent transportation activities of the cable crane group are proven to cause space conflicts, resulting in low operation efficiency. Effective planning of cable crane operations is conducive to accelerating construction progress, improving the productivity of cable cranes, and ensuring a safe construction scenario. The planning of cable crane operations involves task allocation in collaborative construction (among several cable cranes) and parallel scheduling under complex spatial constraints. This paper develops an automatic planning system for cable crane operations in concrete dam construction that can directly output the optimal transportation plan of cable cranes, requiring only the input of relevant construction parameters. First, a two-sided matching model is proposed to address the task allocation problem among cable cranes. Second, a simulation model for the concrete transportation process of the cable crane group is established to solve the parallel scheduling problem and avoid collisions. Third, an improved ant colony algorithm is proposed that constructs initial solutions based on the two-sided matching model, calculates key construction indicators using the simulation model, and applies a multiobjective decision making method to find the optimal solution. Finally, an actual dam construction case validates the superiority and reliability of this proposed method. Compared with the conventional engineering approaches, the planning results of this proposed method demonstrate a 12% reduction in pouring duration and a 25% enhancement in the utilization balance of cable cranes, effectively increasing productivity and accelerating construction progress.