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March 1995
by Feroze Vazifdar and Peter Kaldveer
What have we learned? Two earthquake events, several miles apart, demonstrate that even regions situated in low to moderate seismicity are not immune from catastrophic damage. The events are discussed and performance of container terminals are compared.
April 1995
by Michael A. Jordan
An assessment of the structural damages caused by the 1995 Kobe Earthquake.
April 2001
by Catherine A. Morris and Patrick McCarthy
Jumbo cranes, capable of serving 22-wide ships and lifting 65 metric tons under spreader and 100 metric tons under hook, have heavier wheel loads, greater stowage and tie-down forces, and increased collision bumper loads. This creates bigger demands on the wharf and the crane-to-wharf interface. To meet the demands, crane and wharf designers must each consider the effect of their design on the other, and provide the proper loads. More cranes are damaged from failure of the connection in the wharf during high winds than from failure of the crane itself. This paper and presentation present current design issues for jumbo cranes and the wharves that must support them.
April 2001
Paper by Simo Hoite, Thomas Dahlgren, and George Fotinos
Presentation by Michael A. Jordan
This 3,600-foot wharf will support six of the world's largest container cranes in an area with high seismic activity and liquefiable soils. This paper presents the design of the wharf, including a method to stabilize the soft Bay Mud using a combination of Cement Deep Soil Mixing and a rock dike. The wharf project also includes a large quantity of excavation to align the shoreline and a soil management plan to dispose of the dredged materials.
April 2001
by Erik Soderberg and Michael A. Jordan
Many wharves have nonlinear berths that meet at a corner. It is often economical to share cranes between these berths, but transferring cranes around the corner is no simple task. This paper and presentation give an overview of the various methods of crane transfer: shuttle systems, the turntable system, and the curved rail, the most popular method of late and the focus of this paper. The seemingly simple curved rail system is actually quite complicated to design. This paper and presentation detail the curved rail's many design considerations and the options available to owners.
As crane wheels travel around a curved rail, the travel paths of the truck, subequalizer, and main equalizer pin paths are offset from the rail.
This video presents the travel path of the leading and following main equalizer pins as the wheels travel around a landside curved crane rail. The landside crane rail will be referred to as the “master” crane rail in the next videos.
As a crane gantries around a curved rail, the rotation of the crane changes resulting in different leading and following equalizer pin travel paths.
This video presents the difference in the leading and following equalizer pin travel paths for the “slave” rail based on the same travel path for the “master” equalizer pins.
Liftech’s Curved Rail program calculates the truck, subequalizer, and main equalizer pin travel paths and optimal “slave” rail geometry based on a chosen “master” rail geometry. The optimal “slave” rail geometry is the geometry that results in the smallest offset between the rail and the wheel travel path.
It is usually practical to accommodate the resulting rail-wheel offset in the gap between the rail flange and rail head, avoiding the need for expensive side-shift mechanisms between the sill beam and main equalizer.
As a crane gantries around a curved rail, the rotation of the crane changes resulting in different leading and following equalizer pin travel paths.
This video presents the difference in the leading and following equalizer pin travel paths for the “slave” rail based on the same travel path for the “master” equalizer pins.
Liftech’s Curved Rail program calculates the truck, subequalizer, and main equalizer pin travel paths and optimal “slave” rail geometry based on a chosen “master” rail geometry. The optimal “slave” rail geometry is the geometry that results in the smallest offset between the rail and the wheel travel path.
It is usually practical to accommodate the resulting rail-wheel offset in the gap between the rail flange and rail head, avoiding the need for expensive side-shift mechanisms between the sill beam and main equalizer.
March 2004
by Feroze Vazifdar and Jeff Florin
Many ports have older existing wharves but need newer and larger cranes to operate the larger ships.
Since wharf modification can be costly, ports should investigate using new technology to re-rate the wharf prior to committing the money to upgrade.
May 2004
by Gerald Serventi, Michael A. Jordan, George Fotinos, and Erik G. Soderberg
presented by Gerald Serventi at the Ports 2004 conference
Currently, wharves on the west coast are designed according to criteria that establish acceptable damage levels for design earthquakes based on probabilities, e.g. 10% chance of exceedence in 50 years. In some cases a vulnerability analysis is performed. This vulnerability analysis follows the methods described in the ASCE Seismic Guidelines for Ports and includes estimates o f repair costs. The vulnerability analysis does not, however, include the development of detailed designs of the repairs. This paper presents an anticipatory approach to the design of repairs. The paper proposes both the development of design criteria for typical repairs and the preparation of detailed designs for select repairs that would be expected after an earthquake.
May 2004
by Michael A. Jordan, Joe Oakley, Jr., Derrick Lind, and Thomas Griswold
presented by Michael A. Jordan at the Ports 2004 conference
Over recent decades, vessel size and the weight of the heaviest marine containers have increased, resulting in increased crane reactions to the wharves. Many existing wharves cannot carry the heavier crane loads and continue to meet the original design criteria. New wharves may be excessively expensive. This paper presents a new analysis, including the strut-and-tie method, for determining the acceptable crane loads on the crane girders for many cases. This method increases the calculated ultimate capacity of crane girders.
November 2005
by Patrick McCarthy, Erik Soderberg, and Michael Jordan
Recently, severe wind loads have caused the collapse of many cranes. The initial failure usually occurs in the wharf hardware.
If there is more than one tie-down at a crane corner, the crane deflection may cause one tie-down to carry significantly more than it's share of the load. If the tie-down system is not ductile, it may fail before the load is shared by the other corner tie-downs. This results in a progressive failure of the tie-downs and crane collapse.
This presentation explains why forces vary between corner tie-downs and introduces the ductile link; one method to improve the reliability of new and existing tie-down systems.
January 2006
by Arun Bhimani and Erik Soderberg
Presented by Arun Bhimani at the AAPA Port Facilities Engineering Conference
This presentation discusses common inconsistencies between the design data provided by the crane supplier and the wharf design. It clarifies the basis of crane loads, recommends what crane data should be provided to the wharf designer, recommends what wharf data should be provided to the crane supplier, and presents commonly overlooked design consideration that have resulted in major failures.
March 2007
by Shah Vahdani, John Egan, Robert Pyke, Chih-Cheng Ching, Tom LaBasco, and Tom Griswold
Presented by Erik Soderberg at the Ports 2007 conference
This presentation discusses the findings of seismic capacity study of a recently designed and constructed wharf (Berth 59) at the port of Oakland (Port).
This study was conducted to evaluate the reserved capacity of the wharf to resist structural collapse during a major seismic event in the Bay Area, California. The wharf was designed according to the Port's seismic design requirements.
March 2007
by Michael Jordan, Cathy Morris, and Anna Dix
Presented by Michael Jordan at the Ports 2007 conference
Container terminals are becoming increasingly more congested and expensive to operate. Highways and railways are already congested by container traffic and this congestion will worsen. Pollution from port operations is also a rising concern. These factors create a growing need for new, more economical terminal operation methods. Floaterm is a concept that helps alleviate congestion and pollution.
This presentation discusses two variations of Floaterm concepts: midstream and ship-in-a-slip operations. Engineering calculations have been prepared to verify the technical feasibility of the concepts, but are not included here.
Technical papers and magazine articles by Liftech Consultants Inc.
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