The efficiency of modern container ports is staggering. Containers are located on ships according to ship stability, safety concerns, final destination etc.
It has occurred to me that the order of storing containers could be further optimised by minimising the height to which any given container must be lifted to get it off a ship.
If all containers weighed the same, this wouldn’t matter, but if we have heavy ones located near the keel, they are more energetically expensive to lift than lighter ones. Given the numbers of crane movements, the potential cost saving is significant.
So today’s invention is a loading pattern which would keep heavy containers high enough to limit energy wastage during unloading, but not so high as to compromise ship stability. Ideally, I’d like to lift a given container only just high enough for it to vertically clear its neighbours towards the dockside -which has implications both for the loading pattern as well as the crane operation.
