Roller energy chain replaces cable tenders on 900-ton heavy Goliath shipyard crane

Profile

• What was needed: Heavy Duty 5050RHD series roller energy chain
• Requirements: A reliable cable guidance was sought for 200m of travel, which would protect the cables in terms of the longest possible service life and would not excessively stress them. 
• Industry: Crane industry
• Success for the customer: With the replacement by an e-chain system, the cables are safely guided without being strained. The roller energy chains also reduce the required drive power to less than 25%.

Problem

On a travel of 200m, two crane trolleys travel on this single girder Goliath crane, which is fed with energy and data. The cable packages required for this achieve a weight of around 28kg/m for the upper trolley and 18.6kg/m for the crane trolley travelling below.
For many years, the operator relied on a line tender to guide and move the cables. However, the stress that arose on the cables during this process led to massive cable failures, which resulted in an increased risk of failure as well as high maintenance costs. Consequently, the shipyard operator decided in 2015 to switch to a new system in order to save costs and time in ongoing operations.

Solution

As the shipyard operator had already gained initial experience with our chain systems on other Goliath shipyard cranes, it was an obvious step to also use e-chains from our product range in this case. Due to the long travels and heavy cable weights, rolling energy chain systems should be used with Goliath cranes. The Heavy Duty series roller energy chains installed today minimize the required drive power to less than 25% and are rugged enough to safely and reliably guide all cables. Important advantage here was also that the cables are not strained by excessive stress on the chain and its lifetime increases.
In order to align our products in the best possible way to the requirements on cranes, we test and develop our energy chains and cables in our igus® test laboratory.