South Korea to develop commercial mobile harbour

THE Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology president Suh Nam-pyo's concept of a mobile harbour for unloading and loading is to be developed for emerging markets unable to afford deep-water ports.

In a Voice of America report, company CEO Ahn Choong Sung said the mobile harbour would bring goods to other places such as South America directly avoiding costly inland transportation.

"It will expand the container shipping market and also help the environment. After all, using trucks to move goods causes a lot of carbon air pollution and traffic jams," he adds.

The concept relies on pulleys, axles and shock absorbers to deal with the undulating sea. The design will allow the mobile harbour, in the form of cargo barges, to meet unloaded container vessels along any coastline to be offloaded at "receiving platforms."

Senior engineer Gwak Byung-man said the technical challenges focus on how to stabilise the vessel in all those waves and how to stabilise the loading equipment aboard the vessel itself?

The concept is to be marketed as a deterrent to terrorists by keeping potentially dangerous cargo away from inland populated areas.

(Source: www.schednet.com)