Technical Papers

Introduction Steel sheet piling (SSP) is a hot-rolled structural shape with interlocks on the flange tips. The interlocks permit individual sections to be connected to form a continuous steel wall which is earth-tight and water resistant. Because it is readily available and transportable, SSP is in many cases a fast and economical solution to an owner’s need for a durable, long lasting wall system.

Worldwide projects At any single moment, DEME companies are working at 70 different projects worldwide. Moving from the Australian outback over the Gulf of Mexico to the far North of Russia is quite common, and tells a lot about flexibility and diversity in the group. At the end of 2007, the European Community accounted for only 37 per cent of business, with six per cent coming from non-EU European countries. The Middle East provided 24 per cent of activity, the Indian subcontinent delivered six per cent, and Africa was worth a full 12 per cent.

Container terminals today face many challenges – among them managing higher power consumption costs and the requirement to achieve ‘greener’ operations. Terminal congestion, noise abatement concerns, ship emissions and container handling equipment emissions are all factors in the frequent environmental permit delays that have slowed many terminal expansion projects.

Mouchel’s ports business has supported US-based natural gas company Excelerate Energy in reaching a significant milestone in the gas industry’s history – the successful delivery (in June 2008) of Argentina’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo to the newly constructed import facility at the port city of Bahia Blanca, approximately 400 miles South of Buenos Aires.

Atlas Elektronik Group are a service provider of maritime and naval solutions above and below the ocean surface. The company is a leader in all fields of maritime advanced technology, from survey echosounders to heavyweight torpedoes, coastal protection systems to minehunting sonars, and from command & control systems including radio & communication systems for submarines, surface combatants and mine warfare systems to in-service support. Atlas is now a joint company of ThyssenKrupp and EADS.

The threat from major terrorist attacks is very real for port operators and those responsible for ensuring the safety and security of the world’s port facilities. Major terrorist attacks such as 9/11 have spurred huge investment in port security in recent years and have led to international support for enhancements to the security of transportation and supply chain networks. The spectrum of security threats that ports face includes not only those associated to terrorism, but also includes traditional foes such as fraud, theft, smuggling, illegal immigration and piracy. Nonetheless the security threat of greatest concern is from terrorist organisations and in particular the delivery of Weapons of Mass Effect (WME) and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), potentially nuclear.

India has a coastline of 7,500 km dotted with 13 federal and over 180 non federal ports (of which about fifty are active). Of 13 federal ports, seven ports – Chennai, Ennore, Tuticorin, Visakhapatnam, Paradip, Haldia, and Kolkatta lie on the East coast. The six ports on the West coast include Kochi, Mangalore, Mumbai, JNP (New Mumbai), Mormugao and Kandla. The non federal ports are concentrated in the coastal provinces (called states in India) of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa and Kerala on the West coast and in Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, and West Bengal on the East Coast.

The UK ports industry, by virtue of the country’s long coastline and distinguished maritime history, is the largest in Europe. Its scale and diversity are truly impressive; the UK boasts many of the world’s most sophisticated ports, ranging from container ports and terminals for oil, gas and bulk goods, through to passenger facilities for cruise liners and ferries.

Container ter minals are struggling with ever-increasing volume, and are therefore searching for solutions to increase throughput capacity. On the other hand they target to increase their productivity on vessels in order to be able to handle bigger ships with larger call sizes in the same time windows. A terminal operating system (TOS) is playing a major role in today’s terminal operations, as it supports planning, scheduling and equipment control. More and more tasks are performed by the TOS – stowage planning, grounding decisions, equipment dispatching – and therefore, they need to be well tuned to the operation, which remains a terminal specific characteristic. Today, it still requires a lot of human intervention, whereas computers and control software would be more appropriate. What is really needed, and how can we ensure that it works before putting it in place? In this paper we discuss the type of software required, and a way to ensure that it will actually contribute to real-live performance in the terminal.

Detection of small targets in good weather is not always challenging, however, in heavy rainfall and rough seas thesituation changes dramatically. In these conditions radar detection of small targets require very high gain antennas with narrow beamwidths and small clutter cells to reduce rainfall and sea clutter return. Parabolic reflector radar antennas include the ability of polarisation switching in X band for improved performance in heavy rainfall and, in combination with frequency diversity transceivers, provide high radar detection capability. Furthermore, for the most demanding weather conditions often found in tropical regions where rainfall can sometimes exceed 40-60mm/hr and temperate latitudes subject to gale force winds, a combined dual X and S band antenna can be used to maintain radar detection by utilising the S band frequency with circular polarisation.

With 39 per cent share of the global market, the Asia Pacific maritime industry has been booming and forecast to grow at a CAGR of seven per cent between 2006 and 2010. Maritime services, offshore and freight forwarding are slated to be the fastest growing areas (see Table 1).

Introduction ABB, formerly ASEA, has been active in supplying cranes and equipment for over a 100 years and to this day has supplied electrical and automation equipment to more than 1,200 cranes of all types and in all parts of the world. ABB has and will supply automation and electrical scope to a number of demanding automation projects including: • Le Havre (SETO, 2003) – five double trolley STS • Kaoshiung (Evergreen, 2005) – six cantilever RMGs • Euromax (Rotterdam, 2005) – order for 16 STS and 58automatic RMGs • TPCT (Taipei, 2007) – order for 40 cantilever RMGs • Hanjin (Busan, 2007) – order for 42 cantilever RMGs • PNC (Busan, 2007) – order for 31 cantilever RMGs