Probabilistic Assessment of Container Crane Under Wind Loading

Container cranes are highly susceptible to damage or even failure during severe windstorms. Damage of container crane causes significant amount of economic loss both in terms of repair/replacement and downtime. This chapter focuses on the effect of uncertainty of different parameters of wind field on the performance of container cranes. A representative crane of tower height 72.60 m and total boom length of 131.00 m is chosen and modeled in a commercial software considering both material and geometric nonlinearities. Stochastic fluctuating wind fields have been simulated by means of spectral representation method using the Kaimal and Simiu power spectra in conjunction with along and across wind coherence functions. Nonlinear time history analyses are carried out using simulated wind fields, and the performance of the crane is assessed in terms of fragility curves. Further, a sensitivity analysis is conducted by means of a tornado diagram and first-order second-moment analysis to rank different uncertain parameters of wind field. Based on these results, a few considerations for design have been provided.