Container Handling Equipment Research Articles

Operating strategies of CO2 reduction for a container terminal based on carbon footprint perspective

This paper investigates CO2 emissions produced by two different container terminal operating models (tire transtainers and rail transtainers) at the port of Kaohsiung, and seeks to determine energy saving and CO2 reduction strategies for shipping companies and terminal operators in order to comply with green port requirements.This paper's research methodology involves carbon footprint analysis and gray relational analysis. Carbon footprint analysis is employed to calculate the CO2 emissions per container of two different container terminal operating models employing data for various areas (such as the berthing area, container yard, and gate area), where the raw data is collected from shipping companies or terminal operating companies at the port of Kaohsiung. Gray relational analysis is then used to determine the ranking order of different container terminal operating models based on the green port assessment criteria of working time efficiency, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions.The chief findings of this paper are that the ranking order of container terminal types based on carbon footprint is tire transtainer ahead of rail transtainer; optimal green port assessment criteria constituted working time efficiency, energy cost, and CO2 emissions; and use of container handling equipment with high operating efficiency can not only accomplish work rapidly, lessening the berthing time of ships in port, but also reduce energy costs and CO2 emissions.

A Heuristic Procedure for the Outbound Container Relocation Problem during Export Loading Operations

During export ship loading operations, it is often necessary to perform relocation movements with containers that interfere with access to the desired container in the ship loading sequence. This paper presents a real-time heuristic procedure for the container relocation problem employing reachstacker vehicles as container handling equipment. The proposed heuristic searches for good relocation coordinates within a set of nearby bays. The heuristic has a parameter that determines how far from the original bay a container may be relocated. The tradeoff between reducing relocation movements and limiting vehicle travel distances is examined and the performance of the heuristic is compared with a common practice in the smaller container terminals in Chile and Mexico. Finally, a mathematical model for the container relocation problem is presented.

An Analysis of World Container Handling Equipment Market and Development Plans for Korean Suppliers

An Analysis of World Container Handling Equipment Market and Development Plans for Korean Suppliers

Development of Efficiency Measurement for Container Handling Equipment -Application for Hybrid Straddle Carrier-

Immense pressure on environmental impact of yard machinery as part of operating system in container handling industry has led to the introduction of hybrid straddle carrier (HSC). This study attempted to examines operational activity of HSC to distinguish major factors that embroiled in high energy cost and develop appropriate method to measure it. The proposal includes combination of data logging system, spatial data acquisition and visual motion analysis. Motion based analysis was introduced to improve the accuracy of energy analysis, and impact of various motions on HSC performance is explained. Energy analysis from measurement result was able to show that height of stack has impact on battery state of charge during lowering and traveling motion covers 52% from total fuel consumption. Some countermeasures are proposed to increase efficiency as well as exploit full potential of HSC.

Haptic Controller for Mobile Machine Teleoperation

Commercially available haptic interfaces are suitable for many purposes. They are, however, lacking features needed in the use of teleoperation of mobile working machines like mining and container handling equipment. The differing requirements range from mechanics and electronics to user issues and control systems. Also the need for a device both commercially viable and suitable for several different mobile working machines was a requirement. This paper presents a haptic controller capable of utilizing a wide variety of haptic feedback on the drivers of teleoperated machines. A device, simple and robust in structure, provides the tools for operation of different machines, using a real-time simulator and augmented reality. A real-time simulator environment was used in all phases of design and research, from the initial concept testing up to the user tests, verifying the functionality of the system. The research provided further information for the purpose of making a commercial version of this haptic device.

Design and Implementation of Heavy Container Handling Equipment Maintenance System

Heavy handling equipment is the key factor to improve the level of logistic service in container terminal. In order to solve the problem of information sharing in maintenance management, this paper integrates the equipment information which locates in different spatial location on the container terminal and analysis the traditional maintenance method, giving the construction and functional modules of maintenance system, which will reduce the cost of heavy container handling equipment maintenance and improves the operational efficiency of terminal.

A Simulation for Optimum Terminal Truck Number in a Turkish Port Based on Lean and Green Concept

Ports, from the simple physical sea/land interface they once used to be, have successively turned into commerce and industrial centers, then into logistics and distribution platforms, and are now becoming intermodal nodes in international supply chains networks, the efficiency of which now drives trade competitiveness.With her distinguished location, logistics infrastructure and well qualified manpower, Turkey has the potential of being a hub country in her region. However, in order to achieve this potential, Turkish ports have to consider both lean and green approaches in their business strategies. Lean system design is the most important initial step for cargo handling operation in order to reach green operation.At this point, the study has aimed to analyze a Turkish container terminal both in terms of lean and green dimensions. Due to the constraints of data, however, the study has only focused on the cargo handling operations. A simulation model has been used to determine the optimum number of container handling equipment to increase the lean capabilities of a Turkish port. Besides, the environmental damage caused by handling equipment in cargo handling operations has been discussed through the study, and the optimal number of equipment minimizing the environment damage has been reached.

확률적 시뮬레이션 기반 AGV 배차

자동화 컨테이너 터미널에서 안벽크레인, AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle)와 같은 하역장비의 작업은 수많은 요인에 영향을 받으며, 이로 인해 각 장비의 작업시간 예측에 있어 불확실성이 존재한다 이러한 불확실성은 AGV 배차를 어렵게 만들고 작업효율을 떨어뜨리는 주요 원인 중 하나이다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 불확실성에 대처하기 위하여 확률적 시뮬레이션 기반 AGV 배차 알고리즘을 제안한다. 제안 방안은 AGV에 작업을 할당할 때, 할당된 작업의 수행 및 이후 일정 기간 동안의 AGV의 작업에 대해 확률적 시뮬레이션을 여러 번 반복 수행하여 작업할당에 대한 평가치의 확률적 표본을 수집한다. 수집한 표본으로부터 평가의 기대치를 추정하고 이를 이용하여 대안을 평가함으로써 불확실성의 영향을 줄인다. 평가의 신뢰도를 높이기 위해서는 많은 수의 표본을 수집해야 하므로 실시간 제약 하에서 수집 가능한 확률적 표본의 수를 늘리기 위해 이벤트 기반의 고속 시뮬레이션을 디자인하였다. 시뮬레이션 실험을 통해 검증한 결과 불확실성이 있는 환경에서 제안방안의 성능이 정적인 환경을 가정하는 방안보다 뛰어남을 확인하였다. In an automated container terminal, various factors affect the operation of container handling equipment such as quay cranes and AGVs, and thus calculating the exact operation time is nearly infeasible. This uncertainty makes it difficult to dispatch AGVs well. In this paper, we propose a simulation-based AGV dispatching algorithm When dispatching an AGV to an operation, the proposed algorithm conducts multiple stochastic simulation for the succeeding AGV operations for the predetermined period to collect stochastic samples of the result of the dispatching. In the stochastic simulation, the uncertainty of crane operations is represented as a simple probability distribution and the operation time of a crane is determined according to this. A dispatching option is evaluated by the total delay time of quay cranes which is estimated by averaging the quay crane delay of each simulation In order to collect a sufficient number of samples that guarantee the credibility of the evaluation, we devised a high-speed simulator that simulates AGV operation The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated by simulation experiments.

A Look-Ahead Dispatching Method for Automated Guided Vehicles in Automated Port Container Terminals

To reduce delay in ship operations in automated container terminals, it is important to make different types of container handling equipment to operate harmoniously during this operation. Delivery operations by automated guided vehicles (AGVs) play an important role for synchronizing operations of container cranes with yard cranes. This study discusses how to dispatch AGVs by utilizing information about locations and times of future delivery tasks. A mixed-integer programming model is provided for assigning optimal delivery tasks to AGVs. A heuristic algorithm is suggested for overcoming the excessive computational time needed for solving the mathematical model. Objective values and computational times of the heuristic algorithm are compared with those of the optimizing method. To test performances of the heuristic algorithm, a simulation study is performed by considering the uncertainties of various operation times and the number of future delivery tasks for looking ahead. Also, the performance of the heuristic algorithm is compared with those of other dispatching rules.

A Tabu search technique applied to scheduling container transfers

A scheduling model is designed and applied to seaport container terminals taking into account factors such as container handling equipment, labour resources, storage capacities and terminal layout. Major factors influencing container transfer efficiency are analysed to optimise resource usage resulting in lower operating costs while achieving a desired level of customer service. A Tabu Search (TS) heuristic is used to compare the benchmark of the Port of Brisbane with a Genetic Algorithm (GA) heuristic solution.