Connect the Ship Challenge - Internal Mechanical Solution & Automated Attachment/Removal Options

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

The goal of this submission is to provide a very basic and very brief concept of two similar potential new corner locks for stackable shipping containers as well as provide a general idea for two automated designs to attach/remove corner locks (whether this design or use of others) from shipping containers as they leave or head to the ship. (Continued below)

Additional refinement of the current models including for manufacturability, cost, additional details, and stress as shown would be required moving forward and as this is meant to only show a basic mechanical solution idea as well as usage of the space standardized container corners allow.

Thanks for the opportunity and for your consideration.
-ChrisB

Corner Lock Design1 - '3-Fingers':
Uses mechanical cam system to auto lock the upper container to container below. As the upper container is lowered springs keep the cam plate pointed downward, ready to insert into container below. Position and shape of this plate allows it to easily fit in hole of the container below. As the upper container is lowered the cam plate hits top of lower container and starts to pivot the lock into place inside the lower container corner (ref attached screen shots). The unique cam system allows the potential to provide two walls of contact inside the lower container at once from this rotating arm in lieu of current designs on the market that only attach to a small portion of the uppermost surface of the inside of the lower container corner.


Corner Lock Design2 - 'OneSided':
Similar to Design1 above but only uses the mechanical cam plate on one side to hold container (as four points on container should only need for one side per hole).


Automate Insertion/Removal of Corner Locks - Option 1-Staging Table:
An automated staging table would sit between the ship and trucks(or other) delivering containers. This could be setup to work with a chosen corner lock design and be made to service all standard size containers of varying lengths. The crane moving a container would briefly set the container down on the table where automated process would add/remove the corner locks within
seconds and then lift back up to continue its journey whether that be to the ship or to an awaiting truck.


Automate Insertion/Removal of Corner Locks - Option 2-Staging Stand:
A truck delivering a shipping container would pull under a crane being used to load/unload an awaiting cargo ship. This same area would have several post to the left and right of the truck. The crane would lift the shipping container just enough off the truck to clear it, allowing the truck to continue on its way. This would also put the container in position of the surrounding post that hold automated equipment to attached the corner locks. The post would be spaced and numbered as necessary to accommodate the different standardized lengths of shipping containers and software would ensure the correct locations are turned on to locate and attach corner locks to the container within seconds. Software and the mechanical design of these automated post would mean the truck delivering the container did not have to stop in an exact location eliminating a potential roadblock of this idea. The automated system could self align and insert locks within seconds, allowing the crane to quickly continue on its way without adding any additional movements to the loading process.


Original SW2015 Models and a STP file attached.

Blue Container model by GC user Michael Herbert
Grey Container corners by 3DCC user Justin Nitz
Green Flatbed Trailer model by GC user Erjan Rohaan