Quay crane scheduling at container terminals to minimize the maximum relative tardiness of vessel departures

In this paper, we study the problem of scheduling quay cranes (QCs) at container terminals where incoming vessels have different ready times. The objective is to minimize the maximum relative tardiness of vessel departures. The problem can be formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model of large size that is difficult to solve directly. We propose a heuristic decomposition approach to breakdown the problem into two smaller, linked models, the vessel‐level and the berth‐level models. With the same berth‐level model, two heuristic methods are developed using different vessel‐level models. Computational experiments show that the proposed approach is effective and efficient. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006     

Optimally scheduling interfering and non‐interfering cranes

This article treats the problem of scheduling multiple cranes processing jobs along a line, where cranes are divided into different groups and only cranes in the same group can interfere with each other. Such crane scheduling problems occur, for example, at indented berths or in container yards where double rail‐mounted gantry cranes stack containers such that cranes of the same size can interfere with each other but small cranes can pass underneath larger ones. We propose a novel algorithm based on Benders decomposition to solve this problem to optimality. In a computational study, it is shown that this algorithm solves small and medium‐sized instances and even many large instances within a few seconds or minutes. Moreover, it improves several best known solutions from the literature with regard to the simpler problem version with only one crane group. We also look into whether investment in more complicated crane configurations with multiple crane groups is actually worthwhile.     

A m‐parallel crane scheduling problem with a non‐crossing constraint

In this paper, we study a m‐parallel machine scheduling problem with a non‐crossing constraint motivated by crane scheduling in ports. We decompose the problem to allow time allocations to be determined once crane assignments are known and construct a backtracking search scheme that manipulates domain reduction and pruning strategies. Simple approximation heuristics are developed, one of which guarantees solutions to be at most two times the optimum. For large‐scale problems, a simulated annealing heuristic that uses random neighborhood generation is provided. Computational experiments are conducted to test the algorithms. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007.     

基于DSP的主动式波浪补偿起重机控制系统设计

设计了一种基于DSP(Digital Signal Processing)的主动式波浪补偿起重机的控制系统,分析了系统的工作原理与功能要求,研究了DSP控制核心及其外围接口,完成了前向通道设计ZRS-422串行通信人机接口设计、后向通道设计以及整个DSP控制系统软件设计,并采用Matlab进行了系统仿真.将该控制系统成功应用于主动式波浪补偿系统缩比样机,实验表明样机的主动补偿性能良好,工作稳定可靠.     

Determining crane areas for balancing workload among interfering and noninterfering cranes

This article treats the problem of subdividing an area for storing containers such that the workload is evenly shared among the cranes operating the resulting subareas. We consider two crane sets: while noncrossing constraints between cranes of the same set need to be observed, cranes of different sets do not interfere. Such a problem setting is, for instance, relevant for scheduling the (un‐)loading of vessels by parallel quay cranes operating on opposing berths or in container yards with cross‐over cranes. We formalize the resulting optimization problem, prove computational complexity, and present exact and heuristic solution procedures. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012     

并联波浪补偿系统的鲁棒控制方法

研究了基于绳牵引并联机构的新型波浪补偿系统的鲁棒控制方法。将环境作用力和不可测参数从动力学方程中分离出来,看作系统干扰,然后根据李亚普诺夫稳定性理论推导了控制律。针对绳索冗余的情况,提出了一种基于交互投影的绳索张力分布算法。当存在张力分布的可行解时,该算法能够得到远离张力限制边缘的"安全"最优解;当不存在可行解时,该算法能够得到满足张力限制条件的最佳近似解。为了提高鲁棒控制的实用性,还研究了负载惯性参数辨识方法。仿真结果表明,以上理论与方法对于波浪补偿系统是非常有效的。     

A branch‐and‐cut algorithm for the quay crane scheduling problem in a container terminal

The quay crane scheduling problem consists of determining a sequence of unloading and loading movements for cranes assigned to a vessel in order to minimize the vessel completion time as well as the crane idle times. Idle times originate from interferences between cranes since these roll on the same rails and a minimum safety distance must be maintained between them. The productivity of container terminals is often measured in terms of the time necessary to load and unload vessels by quay cranes, which are the most important and expensive equipment used in ports. We formulate the quay crane scheduling problem as a vehicle routing problem with side constraints, including precedence relationships between vertices. For small size instances our formulation can be solved by CPLEX. For larger ones we have developed a branch‐and‐cut algorithm incorporating several families of valid inequalities, which exploit the precedence constraints between vertices. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006     

The quay crane scheduling problem with time windows

The quay crane scheduling problem consists of scheduling tasks for loading and unloading containers on cranes that are assigned to a vessel for its service. This article introduces a new approach for quay crane scheduling, where the availability of cranes at a vessel is restricted to certain time windows. The problem is of practical relevance, because container terminal operators frequently redeploy cranes among vessels to speed up the service of high‐priority vessels while serving low‐priority vessels casually. This article provides a mathematical formulation of the problem and a tree‐search‐based heuristic solution method. A computational investigation on a large set of test instances is used to evaluate the performance of the heuristic and to identify the impact of differently structured crane time windows on the achievable vessel handling time. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011     

大型柔性起竖臂的有限元建模与分析

针对使用中的振动问题，基于ANSYS软件平台建立某大型柔性起竖臂合理的有限元模型，获得其固有振动特性、刚度和强度等设计数据。分析表明，使用中出现的振动现象是由于外载荷频率接近起竖臂一阶固有频率所致，而起竖臂刚度和强度设计整体合理，但存在局部应力集中和强度设计偏于保守的问题。