Turning a shipping container into a barge...? Plz don't laugh :-)

[SamSam]

Looking around, but this is about as close to turning a shipping container into a barge as I can find. It's basically a landing craft/barge made with short containers in mind.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...icial%26sa%3DN

[SamSam]

On the other hand , here's another proposed container solution to Africa's problems.

Strategic Capabilities: ISO Container "BattleBoxesTM": Containerize the entire U.S. Army

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...icial%26sa%3DN

[SamSam]

Here's a start...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...icial%26sa%3DN

Later, the rig’s sections arrived behind nine big trucks. Each was a standardized twenty-foot shipping container. Inside the containers were all the pumps, motors, cables, pipes, and hardware needed for a working drilling rig. After workers removed the parts, a crane turned over each rectangular shell and lowered it into the water. Workers, sometimes wearing scuba gear, linked the Chinese-made containers together to form the platform itself. As the rig’s maiden coring operations on stormy Great Salt Lake demonstrated, the big metal boxes can be made into a strong floating platform.
After several days, the platform, with drilling crew aboard, was ready to move. It was now named the Kerry Kelts in tribute to a deceased University of Minnesota researcher who pushed for its development. Baker, Fritz, and Broda climbed on the Neecho’s deck, while Seltzer sat in the driver’s seat. As the slow tow began, the Neecho’s oxygen-deficient engines briefly belched black smoke. Soon boat, towing cable, and barge were linked in an arc gently swinging up Lago Huiñaimarca’s middle. As the ensemble moved out of Huatajata, the magnificent snow-capped mountains of the Andes’ eastern Cordillera Real (Royal Range) revealed themselves behind the lake’s steep terraced shoreline. The tow continued until the following afternoon, passing through the Straits of Tiquina, which buses, trucks, and cars must cross by barge, and into vast Lago Grande. The platform finally stopped near Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun), the Inca’s mythical birthplace, where flowing spring water courses beside 180 steep Inca Steps. The Neecho maneuvered from corner to corner to rig the Kerry Kelts’ anchors.

[murdomack]

The most usefull part of a container when rebuilding them into other uses is the twist-lock corner castings, where all the design strength terminates.
You can buy fasteners to join them together but if the purpose is a single trip down a river you can easily weld them together. The corner castings are fully weldable.
The wooden floors are very strong, they will support loaded forklifts, although they rot through time. Any container that has just come off a ship should still have a solid floor as they would have been in cert.
To check the door seals and walls for holes, stand inside and get someone to close the door, just make sure that he doesn't owe you any money . You will see any faults in the seals, we use rubber strip with glue on one side to repair any gaps here. Chop up damaged containers for patches for any leaks that will be below the waterline.
Weld three containers together, at the corner castings only, side by side and cut hatches in the top. Slide it into the water and load up the centre one first. You should be able to add some cargo to the side containers as well.
How you recover them at their destination is your next problem and what do you do with them once emptied? Do you tow them back up-river to do another run?
I would still prefer to use a few containers to build a cheap barge to carry one fully loaded container, and once proven as a concept, buy some steel to add a strong skin to the bottom and sides. You could then set up a production line and build your fleet .

[Kiteship]

I think I'm with the build-a-barge-and-add-a-container proponents.

One of the best uses I ever saw for ferro-cement/reinforced concrete was barge hulls. These can be very cheap (plywood or even container-based molds--Heck, the mold could be a simple hole in the ground), very low steel content (thus probably "reinforced concrete," not true "ferro-cement"). The material can be extremely tough (easily bullet proof), cheap and can use recycled or low-grade steel, sand, even gravel. Concrete barges do not rust and can run without maintenance indefinitely.

Smallest barges would be single container, unloaded by an external crane (or by hand, for less than container-sized loads). Larger barges (maybe 6-container?) could begin to profitably mount a self-loading crane. Limit to 20' containers and you'll need smaller crane(s) for load/unload.

FWIW, the Navy is working to build self-directed and self-powered containers--actual robotic containers that can be shoved in the water, find their own ship, and then do it in reverse onto foreign soil. These will be ungodly expensive, but, in 20 years or so, should hit the second-hand market...

Dave

[plankton]

How are you planning to move your "barges" ? Under tow or self-propelled ?

[Spag Sullivan]

Do you still have thoese containers?
It's not a silly idea at all. Any Genisuses out there prepared to have a go at designing a modular barge?
I need one soon and have an Idea. it can be done. Just need to quickly get the fesibility out of the way.
We have material,brains,need,desire to make money and bugger all income after the market crash.
Real Thinkers and Doers Only. No blog dills reply.

[drmiller100]

take a bunch of containers, and lay them on their "sides."

if they have plywood bottoms you will have to put real bottom on them.

fill the containers with huge inflatable large bags with remote fill tubes.
Link these laid over containers to make the "barge."

Set cargo containers down on top of the "barge."

you will have steel protection for the inflatable bags. you have redundency with multiple bags per container. you can check and change inflation with the remote tubes.