B.L. Oudman
De balanskraan als containerkraan voor kleine binnenhavens.
Literature survey,
Report 96.3.TT.4811, Transport Engineering and Logistics.
Against the background of increasing congestion of the roads, a shift in
the hinterland transportation will occur from road to rail and inland barges.
The number of containers to be transported by the latter two modalities is
set to increase rapidly. For the development of the inland barge transportation
it is important that the flexibility of this modality is increased through the
enlargement and creation of many small inland harbours.
In order to guarantee their efficiency these small inland harbours will have
to be equipped with container cranes which can handle the inland barges fast
and accurate. De cranes currently in use at the inland harbours do not meet
these criteria, making research into new container handling techniques
necessary. Within the framework of the development of new container handling
techniques for inland barge transportation, the use of a balance crane for the
handling of containers has been researched for this report.
The research points out that, in its current geometry, the balance crane
is not fit for the handling of containers. One of the demands made on a
container balance crane is, as opposed to the current balance cranes, the
balancing of the mass of the load in addition to the masses of the arms of
the crane. Even if the current balancing system of the balance cranes is
adjusted to counteract the weight of the average mass of the load, the
displacement of the centre of gravity of the balance crane remains to
large for the demands made.
By enhancing the balancing system of the current balance cranes, a small
displacement of the centre of gravity can however be realised. For this
report the 'slide crane' concept has been developed, that couples a
movement of the counterweight, according to the weight of the load, to the
current balancing system of the current balance cranes. Through the
application of some control systems techniques, this new balancing system
is able to realise, according to the demands made, a sufficiently small
displacement of the centre of gravity.
This report also includes the calculation of the sizes and masses of the arms
of the slide crane. These calculations can only be accurately made by an
iterative calculation process, according to the demands on the size of the
working area of the container balance crane. Furthermore three applications of
the slide crane concept were researched, namely: stationary, rail- or
track-mounted and barge mounted.
Reports on Transport Engineering and Logistics (in Dutch)
Modified: 2006.03.22;
logistics@3mE.tudelft.nl
, TU Delft
/ 3mE
/ TT
/ LT.