Case Study: DYMACO achieves safe, accurate design of a complex mining Galloway with Altair S‑FRAME and S‑STEEL

DYMACO - Customer Case Study

DYMACO, a Thunder Bay–based engineering and consulting firm, faced a complex structural challenge designing an 80-foot‑tall, 94‑ton Galloway suspended inside a mineshaft. The structure had strict weight limits set by preselected hoists and wire ropes and had to withstand high Australian code load factors, large eccentric and torsional loads from three articulating drills, and additional forces from concrete and shotcrete equipment. To meet these demands, DYMACO turned to Altair tools, notably Altair S‑FRAME and Altair S‑STEEL.

Using Altair S‑FRAME for detailed finite element analysis and Altair S‑STEEL for steel design, DYMACO built multiple models to evaluate whole‑system behavior, connections, lifting lugs, and stiffener sizing. S‑FRAME’s meshing and 1D→3D conversion enabled accurate simulation of eccentric loading, torsion, vibration and gravity loads, allowing calculation of stiffener locations to prevent plastic deformation and iterative optimization in S‑STEEL. The Altair workflow delivered validated designs and let DYMACO complete the complex analysis in‑house without external technical support.

DYMACO

Dylan Gerow

Principal