New GE technology boosts handling speed of container cranes

The new GE technology will enable ports to compete more effectively in the challenging and rapidly growing seaborne cargo industry which is expected to reach around 1.1bn teu in 2020, compared to 542m teu 2010. Besides expansion projects, advanced container cranes will increasingly be needed to efficiently handle the growing volume and new vessels with capacities of more than 10,000 teu in the world’s ports.

According to the company, GE’s new offering improves the utilisation of the container cranes as well the handling rates. Under optimal conditions the new system can double a crane’s cargo handling per shift. The GE head block coupling system features high levels of flexibility and is equally suited to every container crane.

Previously, the hoisting of containers with very different loads led to different rope lengths, resulting in disruption of the head block coupling. With the new system, these head block displacements can be accommodated by the drive system using sensor data and real-time controller calculations.