An analysis of port congestion alleviation strategy based on system dynamics.

Port congestion has become a key factor restricting the international trade and economic development, especially during the COVID-19 epidemic. It is essential for the port to implement the effective alleviation strategies for handling the uncertain congestion. This paper aims to investigate the performance of the epidemic prevention alliance strategy (EPAS), shared berths strategy (SBS) around adjacent ports and their hybrid strategy in alleviating the port congestion. To simulate the effect of these three strategies, a system dynamics model of dual-port operation is developed considering the factors of the integrated service level of liner routes, empty container allocation, port congestion and regional economics, and so forth. The results indicate that the key issue of port congestion stems from the implementation of epidemic preventive measures. Among these three strategies, the hybrid strategy performs the best in alleviating the port congestion, improving integrated service levels, and curbing the fluctuation of container price. Moreover, the measures of investing more human resources and fixed assets are always taken in many current ports to alleviate the issue of port congestion. Therefore, the impacts of various investment in human resources and fixed assets on alleviating the port congestion are discussed. Finally, some suggestions are provided for the government to strengthen the cooperation between ports and promote the construction of port facility resources.

Nonlinear dynamics of rotor system supported by bearing with waviness.

A new nonlinear rotor model supported by the rolling bearing is established under the consideration of the bearing with waviness fault, the unbalanced excitation, the nonlinear Hertz contact force, the varying compliance vibration, and, especially, the physical nonlinear stiffness of the shaft material. The expression with cubic nonlinear terms is adopted to characterize the physical nonlinear stiffness of the shaft material, and the sinusoidal wave is applied to describe the shape characteristics of the waviness fault. The dynamic equations of motion for the new model are developed, and the calculation example of the rotor system supported by the bearing JIS6306 is solved by the variable step-size Runge-Kutta methods to study the effect of the waviness, the clearance, the mass eccentricity on the dynamic behavior. The research results show that growth of the amplitude for the waviness changes the energy distribution of the vibration process; the enlargement of bearing clearance will reduce the stability of the system; the increase in the number of the waviness will make the order of the frequency components changed; for the nonlinear stiffness bearing-rotor system with waviness fault, the augment of mass eccentricity will enhance the impact of the nonlinear stiffness on the system.