Main characteristics of dock-kessons, their use in the river fleet system and improvements after commissioning
The purpose of this work is to collect, analyze and generalize information on the operation of river dock-caissons. Currently, dock-caissons are rarely built despite their advantages. However, ship-lifting structures do not lose their relevance. The paper analyzes the constructed dock-caissons, intended for caissoning the passenger and cargo ships and docking of small vessels (their fundamental design, analysis of hulls, systems and devices, as well as supporting structures on the slipway-deck), identifies the main problems and search of their solutions. A patent search on this topic was carried out and the most successful solutions were identified. The results of the work represent generalized information about the operation of dock-caissons and allow to optimize their design, construction and operation in the future, taking into account the accumulated experience, as well as enable to avoid mistakes that were made earlier. As a result of this work, some aspects of the operation of the ship-lifting structures that were not taken into account in the design were identified.