Seismic Design of Container Cranes

by Erik Soderberg, Michael Jordan, Jonathan Hsieh, and Yoshi Oritatsu
Presented at the Port and Terminal Technology 2010 Conference in Long Beach, California

Container cranes have evolved to serve ever increasing ship sizes. Today’s typical container cranes are about triple the size of the first cranes, much heavier, and more vulnerable to damage from seismic events. This presentation shows the changes over time that have caused the vulnerability, revisions to design criteria that reduce the vulnerability, the effect of the criteria changes to crane cost and weight, and considerations for existing cranes including some retrofit options and cost estimates.