Overhead travelling cranes work with intermittent motion, and therefore are most exposed to dynamic loads. In steel constructions, as a result of load pick up from the ground, vibrations of various degrees of intensity are induced, which should be included in crane design. These loads affect both the hoisting mechanisms and load-carrying structures. The aim of this study is the formulation of a phenomenological model of an overhead travelling crane enabling the identification of dynamic factors caused by lifting the load off the ground. The object of the study was 107 overhead travelling cranes with lifting capacities from 5 to 50 tones, designed in the Centre for Research and Development of Cranes and Transport Equipment “Detrans” in Bytom and produced in Poland in the period 1970-2005. Cranes were classified according to the stiffness classes proposed in European standards for crane safety. In this paper, computer simulations are carried out on the basis of a phenomenological model with four degrees of freedom, three of them corresponding to the crane’s structure and one to the hoisted load. The model also allows assumption of the variable stiffness and damping of the steel rope during its shortening. The values of the dynamic factors refer to the various design and dynamic parameters of overhead travelling cranes, formulating appropriate conclusions
