Detecting Shipping Container Impacts with Vertical Cell Guides inside Container Ships during Handling Operations.

Due to the mechanical nature of container handling operations, as well as natural factors, container and handling infrastructure suffers various types of damage during use, especially within the tight and enclosed environments of a ship's hull. In this operational environment, it is critical to detect any sort of physical impacts between the vertical cell guides of the ship's hull and the container. Currently, an inspection of impacts and evaluation of any consequences is performed manually, via visual inspection processes. This process is time-consuming and relies on the technical expertise of the personnel involved. In this paper, we propose a five-step impact-detection methodology (IDM), intended to detect only the most significant impact events based on acceleration data. We conducted real measurements in a container terminal using a sensory device placed on the spreader of the quay crane. The proposed solution identified an average of 12.8 container impacts with the vertical cell guides during common handling operations. In addition, the results indicate that the presented IDM can be used to recognize repeated impacts in the same space of each bay of the ship, and can be used as a decision support tool for predictive maintenance systems.

Evaluation of the energy consumption of container diesel trucks in a container terminal: A case study at Klaipeda port.

INTRODUCTION: In the paper, we examine the energy consumption efficiency of specialized container diesel trucks engaged in container transportation at a seaport terminal. OBJECTIVES: Using the container terminal at Klaipeda in Lithuania as the background for the research, we produced an improved energy consumption model for measuring the theoretical energy consumption and regeneration of diesel trucks at the terminal and provide a comparative analysis. METHODS: We created a mathematical model which describes the instantaneous energy consumption of the diesel trucks, taking into account their dynamic properties and the overall geometry of their routes-"Ship-Truck-Stack-Ship"-using the superposition principle. We investigated other critical parameters relevant to the model and provide a statistical evaluation of the transportation process using data from a case study of Klaipeda port, where we collected measurements of container transportation parameters using georeferenced movement detection and logs from wireless equipment positioned on the diesel-powered container trucks. RESULTS: The modeling results showed that an instantaneous evaluation of energy consumption can reveal areas in the container transportation process which have the highest energy loss and require the introduction of new management and process control initiatives to address the regulations which are designed to decrease harmful industrial emissions and encourage novel technologies and thereby increase the eco-friendliness of existing systems. CONCLUSION: Based on the research results, the article can provide a reference for the estimation of diesel truck efficiency in seaport terminal operations.