Seismic Performance Evaluation of Container Cranes

For a port facility to maintain serviceability after an earthquake, individual port structures must maintain serviceability. Past earthquakes have demonstrated that important port structures such as quay wall and container cranes are highly vulnerable to damage during strong earthquakes. This paper focuses on seismic performance evaluation of a typical container crane located on a quay wall. At first, a representative numerical model of a typical gravity-type quay wall is developed and considering a large number of scenario earthquakes with various hazard levels, nonlinear time history analysis is performed assuming the ground motions to be known at the bedrock level. After that using a numerical model of a typical container crane, time history analysis is performed using the motion obtained at the base level of the crane (i.e., top of the quay wall). To assess seismic performance of the crane in the framework of performance-based design, the damage criteria for the crane are established based on the post-earthquake serviceability. Finally, seismic performance of the crane is evaluated in terms of fragility curves.