Statistical Evaluation of the Impacts Detection Methodology (IDM) to Detect Critical Damage Occurrences during Quay Cranes Handling Operations

During various marine container handling operations, performed mainly in larger-scale container terminals, containers get damaged regularly. Our previous studies showed that each physical impact results in some form of physical deformation of the backbone structure. Even at low accelerations, the spreaders of the quay cranes impact the containers with enough force to substantially bend the metal parts of the corners of the containers, when additional hooking procedures are required. This means that the first time resulted in the metal rods hitting the metal frame with an average 15-ton mass at the average speed of 1.7 m/s. The metal rods of the hooking mechanisms' impact areas of the containers are structurally important, and each impact surely damages the containers, diminishing their total operational time. We have already proposed the Impacts Detection Methodology (IDM) and its application system, tested in Klaipeda City port, and it proved to be efficient in real-time operations, detecting concurrent impacts with each new handling cycle. In this paper, we provide a summarisation of a larger number of detections using the IDM, and as a result of this analysis, we have detected that more impact events happen when containers are taken from the upper parts of the ship, in comparison to the ones taken from the shafts. Results suggest that more critical events occur due to operator actions and experiences working with the machinery, yet the same operators tend to make fewer impact mistakes taking the containers from the shafts as the vertical cell guides tend to direct the movements and lower the levels of the natural sway of the spreader inside closed environments. This surely damages the metal infrastructure of the shafts, as seen in our previous study, but minimizes the chances of secondary impacts occurring during hooking.

Automated summary

Each physical impact during marine container handling operations leads to physical deformation of the containers' backbone structure. The spreaders of quay cranes, even at low accelerations, have enough force to bend the metal parts of the container corners during additional hooking procedures. The Impacts Detection Methodology (IDM) provides real-time detection of concurrent impacts and shows that more impact events occur when containers are taken from the upper parts of the ship compared to the shafts.