Abstract/Summary

Container terminals are crucial elements in the global trade of goods, however they are also responsible for massive greenhouse gases emissions. One of the key elements in a terminal is the Rubber Tyred Gantry (RTG) crane, which is used to stack containers in the yard. The energy efficiency of this machine can be greatly improved with the use of energy storage by taking advantage of the energy recovered when lowering a container. This thesis presents a study on supervisory control systems for energy storage, designed to determine the instantaneous power output that provides the best benefits with the limited resources provided by the energy storage device. Background research and data analysis provide indication on the energy flows in the system, leading to the development of an RTG crane model, which is validated using data measured on a real crane. The addition of the model of a flywheel energy storage system produces a hybrid RTG crane model, which is used to simulate three proposed supervisory control strategies developed specifically for this application. The characteristics of the supervisory control systems and results from the simulation are compared and analysed in detail in order to determine the quality of the control systems in a real application.