ABSTRACT
The seaport areas are very exposed to wind action, which affects all the terminal activities. Piled containers can fall and get damaged under extreme wind actions, causing serious safety problems for port operators and economic damage. For this reason, the management of the companies usually adopts safety systems furnishing alert and regulating the terminal operability on the basis of the real time wind velocity monitored in the terminal areas. However, the study of wind stability of the piled containers has not reported in the literature yet, and the critical wind velocity values at the basis of the safety systems are still affected by many uncertainties. This is a preliminary paper concerning in situ and laboratory measures whose results are preparatory for the formulation of the critical wind velocity for the containers stability. The friction coefficient between the containers surface and the piled containers aerodynamic coefficients are the input parameters of critical speeds causing container’s sliding, tilting and lifting. The friction coefficient has been analyzed by means of in situ tests on the piled containers. The aerodynamic coefficients have been studied by means of wind tunnel tests.
