Containership Load Planning with Crane Operations

Since the start of the containerization revolution in 1950's, not only the TEU capacity of the vessels has been increasing constantly, but also the number of fully cellular container ships has expanded substantially. Because of the tense competition among ports in recent years, improving the operational efficiency of ports has become an important issue in containership operations. Arrangement of containers both within the container terminal and on the containership play an important role in determining the berthing time. The berthing time of a containership is mainly composed of the unloading and loading time of containers. Containers in a containership are stored in stacks, making a container directly accessible only if it is on the top of one stack. The task of determining a good container arrangement to minimize the number of re-handlings while maintaining the ship's stability over several ports is called stowage planning, which is an everyday problem solved by ship planners. The horizontal distribution of the containers over the bays affects crane utilization and overall ship berthing time. In order to increase the terminal productivity and reduce the turnaround time, the stowage planning must conform to the berth design. Given the configuration of berths and cranes at each visiting port, the stowage planning must take into account the utilization of quay cranes as well as the reduction of unnecessary shifts to minimize the total time at all ports over the voyage. This dissertation introduces an optimization model to solve the stowage planning problem with crane utilization considerations. The optimization model covers a wide range of operational and structural constraints for containership load planning. In order to solve real-size problems, a meta-heuristic approach based on genetic algorithms is designed and implemented which embeds a crane split approximation routine. The genetic encoding is ultra-compact and represents grouping, sorting and assignment strategies that might be applied to form the stowage pattern. The evaluation procedure accounts for technical specification of the cranes as well as the crane split. Numerical results show that timely solution for ultra large size containerships can be obtained under different scenarios

Parametric design and multi-objective optimisation of containerships

The introduction of new regulations by the International Maritime Organisation, the fluctuation of fuel price levels, along with the continuous endeavour of the shipping industry for economic growth and profits has led the shipbuilding industry to explore new and cost-efficient designs for various types of merchant ships. In this respect, proper use of modern computer-aided design/computer-aided engineering systems (CAD/CAE) extends the design space, while generating competitive designs in short lead time. The present paper deals with the parametric design and optimisation of containerships. The developed methodology, which is based on the CAESES/Friendship-Framework software system, is demonstrated by the conceptual design and multi-objective optimisation of a midsized, 6,500 TEU containership. The methodology includes a complete parametric model of the ship’s external and internal geometry and the development and coding of all models necessary for the determination of the design constraints and the design efficiency indicators, which are used for the evaluation of parametrically generated designs. Such indicators defining the objective functions of a multi-objective optimisation problem are herein the energy efficiency design index, the required freight rate, the ship’s zero ballast container box capacity and the ratio of the above to below deck number of containers. The set-up multi-objective optimisation problem is solved by use of the genetic algorithms

Parametric design and multiobjective optimization of containerships

The introduction of the energy efficiency design index (EEDI) and ballast water treatment regulations by the International Maritime Organization, the fluctuation of fuel price levels, along with the continuous endeavor of the shipping industry for economic growth and profits has led the shipbuilding industry to explore new and cost-efficient designs for various types of merchant ships. In this respect, proper use of modern computer-aided design/computer-aided engineering systems (CAD/CAE) extends the design space, while generating competitive designs with innovative features in short lead time. The present article deals with the parametric design and optimization of containerships. The developed methodology, which is based on the CAESES/Friendship-Framework software system, is demonstrated by the conceptual design and multiobjective optimization of a midsized, 6500-TEU containership. The methodology includes a complete parametric model of the ship’s external and internal geometry and the development and coding of all models necessary for the determination of the design constraints and the design efficiency indicators, which are used for the evaluation of parametrically generated designs. Such indicators defining the objective functions of a multiobjective optimization problem are herein the EEDI, the required freight rate, the ship’s zero ballast container box capacity, and the ratio of the above to below deck number of containers.The set-up multiobjective optimization problem is solved by use of the genetic algorithms, and clear Pareto fronts are generated. Identified optimal design proves very competitive compared with the standard containership designs in the market

A shipping line stowage-planning procedure in the presence of hazardous containers

This work addresses the stowage-planning problem for containerships, known as the Master Bay Plan problem (MBPP), in the presence of hazardous containers. A novel procedure, based on the principles included in the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code for stowing containers in liner services is presented. Further, shipping alliances are considered. Our aim is to assist the shipping line coordinator (SLC) to optimize the available space assigned to each alliance member. This is possible thanks to the proposed procedure that finds stowage solutions for ships with different structures, capacity and available sections for hazardous containers, and for companies having different stowage strategies. Our procedure can be implemented in a tool, able to verify the stowage constraints and the segregation rules in case of hazardous cargo. Two simple real-life multi-port stowage plans involving hazardous containers are presented and analysed to illustrate the proposed procedure

Parametric design and holistic optimisation of post-panamax containerships

The fluctuation of fuel price levels, along with the continuous endeavour of the shipping industry for economic growth and profits has led the shipbuilding industry to explore new designs for various types of merchant ships. Moreover, the introduction of new regulations by the IMO has added further constraints to the ship design process. In this respect, proper use of modern CAD/CAE systems extends the design space, while generating competitive designs in short lead time. This study deals with the parametric design and holistic optimisation of a post-panamax containership. The methodology includes a complete parametric model of a containership’s external and internal geometry, as well as the development and coding of all tools required for the determination of both the design constraints and the efficiency indicators, which are used for evaluating the parametrically generated designs. The second-generation intact stability criteria are taken into consideration in the optimisation process. The set-up multi-objective optimisation problem is solved by use of the genetic algorithms and clear Pareto fronts are generated

A computer-aided conceptual ship design system incorporating expert knowledge

PhD ThesisIn today's highly competitive shipbuilding market the emphasis is on the production of acceptable design proposals within a very short timescale. A computer-aided conceptual ship design system, which utifises the latest developments in workstation technology, has been developed. It is intended to help reduce the technical and commercial risks associated with the process of tendering for newbuilding contracts. The system as a whole, uses fundamental modeffing techniques to enable areas such as dimensions generation, huilform development, layout design, powering estimation, mass estimation, motions prediction, work content estimation and cost estimation to be considered at a much greater level of detail at the concept design stage than was previously possible. This thesis describes the specification and development of those parts of the overall design system concerned with the generation of vessel dimensions and huliform and layout design. In order to improve the flexibility of the system, a so-called expert system approach has been adopted to provide the mechanism for the control of the design methodology. For this purpose, a unique expert system shell named INCODES (INtelligent COncept DEsign System) was specified and developed. The development of this shell is described in some detail. The application of the INCODES shell to the control of the logic involved in the development of design proposals for containerships is discussed, and the knowledge base developed for the generation of these design proposals is described. The knowledge base is shown to incorporate fundamental procedures for the generation of vessel dimensions and for huliform and layout design, as well as a comprehensive suite of analysis routines to assist in the verification of the design proposals. The knowledge base is also considered to be unique in its treatment of the investigation of the loading arrangements of containership design proposals. The flexibility of the procedures developed is demonstrated by their application to the generation and examination of containership design proposals which possess a range of physical and operational characteristics.British Shipbuilders Limited, Marine Design Consultants Limited

A STOWAGE PLANNING MODEL FOR MULTIPORT CONTAINER TRANSPORTATION

The ship turnaround time at container terminals is an important measure of a port's efficiency and attractiveness. The speed and quality of load planning affect the length of turnaround time considerably. Container operations are extremely important from an economic standpoint, making them a prime target for productivity improvements. In addition, load planning is a very complex problem, since the planners have to account for the stability of the ship and rely on a variety of other stochastic processes. Unfortunately, the load-planning problem is NP-hard making it difficult to obtain an optimal solution in polynomial time. Heuristics that trade quality for tractability are therefore promising tools when coping with this problem. Efficient load planning is accomplished by formulating the stowage-planning model to minimize extra shifting as a mixed integer-programming problem. The key contributions of this dissertation are as follows. A mathematical model is developed which considers real life constraints and considering loading/unloading along the entire voyage. A second mathematical model is formulated to obtain a lower bound on the value of the objective function of the exact solution. A heuristic procedure is developed that is guide by practical considerations that account for the structure of the stowage-planning problem. All proposed mathematical models and heuristic are validated with experimental results. In all cases, these results demonstrate the stability, flexibility and efficiency of the model, and establish its potential as a versatile and practical method for large scale container loading

Multi-agent system with iterative auction mechanism for master bay plan problem in marine logistics

The support of containerization to trade development demands an efficient solution method for the container loading problem in order to reduce shipment and handling time. Hence, the stowage planning of containers is critical to provide speedy delivery of resources from the area of supply to the area of demand. Moreover, information on container terminal activities, structure of ship, and characteristics of containers is distributed among stowage planners. This information imposes constraints, and so the master bay plan problem (MBPP) becomes NP-hard. Therefore, a multi-agent systems (MAS) methodology is designed to effectively communicate the information and solve the MBPP sustainably. In the designed MAS methodology, an information exchange system (IES) is created for stowage planners to bid for ship slots in each experimental iterative combinatorial auction (ICA) market. The winner in the ICA experiments is provided with the ship slots, and the entire bay plan is prepared. Further, the ship-turnaround time is validated using the data obtained from the benchmark problem