Containers and Containment Systems

Shipping containers at a terminal.

Part of an American doublestack container train loaded with 53 ft. containers

Containerization is a system of intermodal cargo transport using standard ISO containers (also known as isotainers) that can be loaded on container ships, railroad cars, and trucks. There are five common standard lengths, 20 ft (6.1 m), 40 ft (12.2 m), 45 ft (13.7 m), 48 ft (14.6 m) and 53 ft (16.2 m). US domestic standard containers are generally 48 ft and 53 ft. Container capacity (of ships, ports, etc) is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU, or sometimes teu). A twenty-foot equivalent unit is a measure of containerized cargo equal to one standard 20 ft (length) × 8 ft (width) × 8.5 ft (height) container. In metric units this is 6.10 m (length) × 2.44 m (width) × 2.59 m (height), or approximately 39 m³. Most containers today are of the 40-ft variety and thus are 2 TEU. 45 ft containers are also designated 2 TEU. Two TEU are referred to as one forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU). These two terms of measurement are used interchangeably. "High cube" containers have a height of 9.5 ft (2.9 m), while half-height containers, used for heavy loads, have a height of 4.25 ft (1.3 m).

History

A container ship being loaded by a portainer crane in Copenhagen Harbour

A container freight train in England

Containerization is an important element of the logistics revolution that changed freight handling in the 20th century. Malcolm McLean claimed to have invented the shipping container in the 1930s in New Jersey. Then a truck owner-operator, McLean explained that while sitting at a dock waiting for cotton bales to be unloaded from his truck then reloaded onto a ship, he realized that the truck itself (with some minor modifications) could be transferred much more efficiently.

Years later, McLean founded Sea-Land Corporation, and his first container ship left Port Newark for Texas on April 26, 1956, carrying 58 trailers.

Containerization revolutionized cargo shipping. Today, approximately 90% of cargo moves by containers stacked on transport ships. As of 2005 some 18 million containers make over 200 million trips per year, there are ships that can carry over 6,000 TEU, and designers are working on freighters capable of 13,000 TEU.

The widespread use of ISO standard containers influenced modifications in other freight moving standards, gradually forcing removable truck bodies or swap bodies into the same sizes and shapes (though without the strength needed to be stacked), and changing completely the worldwide use of freight pallets which fit into ISO containers or into commercial vehicles.

Container types

• Dry Van (standard height)
• Dry Van ("high cube")
• Dry Van (half-height)
• Open-Top
• Open-Side

A railroad car with container loads.

• Side-Door
• Refrigerated
• Auto Rack
• Flat Rack
• Flatbed (platform)
• Bulktainers (for dry goods)
• Tanks (for liquid goods)
• Gas Bottle
• Generator

Biggest container companies

^{(SOURCE: BRS-Alphaliner)}

* Maersk acquired P & O Nedlloyd (13 August 2005), the new combined entity will be called "Maersk Line" starting February 2006.

Other container systems

• Haus-zu-Haus (Germany)
• RACE containers (Australia)

Containers used for housing and other architecture

Containers are in many ways an ideal building material, because they are strong, durable, stackable, cuttable, movable, modular, plentiful and relatively cheap. It is not surprising then that architects as well as laypeople have utilized them to build homes, offices, apartments, schools, dormitories, artists' studios, emergency shelters and many other uses. For more information, please visit the Wikipedia page for Shipping Container Architecture.

See also

• Containerlift
• Portainer cranes
• Semi-trailer
• ULD
• bulk cargo
• Container numbering

In fiction

The containerization system, containers, tracking of containers, and moving of containers is extensively made use of in the HBO television series The Wire.

References

• Alexander Jung for Der Spiegel (2005). The Box That Makes the World Go Round. Retrieved November 26, 2005.

External links

• Dimensions for shipping containers
• Container diagram and other information
• "The 20-Ton Packet" - Wired Magazine October 1999
• World Port Rankings 2002, by metric tons and by TEUs, American Association of Port Authorities (xls format, 26.5kb)
• Shipping Container Housing Guide