Sling performance is an important factor affecting the efficiency of container terminal loading and unloading operations

Sling performance is an important factor affecting the efficiency of container terminal loading and unloading operations

With the development of the logistics and transportation industry, coupled with the economic globalization, the circulation of goods between countries is becoming more and more frequent. The throughputs of major ports are constantly setting new records, and the demand for container slings has increased significantly. As a transit point for maritime transportation and road transportation, ports play an important role in global resource allocation. Port construction has also become one of the key engineering projects in various coastal countries.

As an important carrier of cargo transportation, containers have become an internationally-used transportation mode, and the operation mode of ports is also developing to a high degree of automation. Among them, regarding horizontal transportation automation, many ports have been able to use AGV technology and driverless technology to achieve. However, for terminal loading and unloading, full automation is still not possible at present, mainly due to the difficulty in controlling the alignment of shore bridges and containers.

Container loading and unloading speed is an important factor in evaluating the efficiency of container terminal loading and unloading operations. With limited operating equipment, only increasing operating efficiency can meet increasing port throughput requirements. At present, although most of the steps of the automatic container terminal shore bridge operation can be completed automatically by the equipment, the alignment process still needs manual control by operators. On the one hand, because offshore operations are greatly affected by the sea wind, and the slings at the bottom of the shore bridge are connected with the main body of the shore bridge by flexible steel wire ropes, when the sea wind is strong, it is easy to cause shaking and is not conducive to alignment. On the other hand, due to the small size of the connection between the sling and the container, the fault tolerance rate is not high, which is also not conducive to grasping the container. Therefore, even for experienced shore bridge drivers, it often takes several attempts to successfully “capture” the container. Although many ports have developed remote operation methods for shore bridge hoisting, they are not practical and the focus is not getting rid of Human intervention has not yet been fully automated.