Wire Rope Industry News

Industrial wire ropes are the lifeline of crane operations, quite literally. They bear immense loads and are subjected to many different stresses during daily use. Regular maintenance of your industrial wire rope equipment provides the following benefits. . .

Offshore cranes are specialized lifting devices used extensively in marine environments, particularly on ships, platforms, and oil rigs. These cranes are designed to operate in the rough conditions of the sea, including strong winds, waves, and corrosive saltwater.

Over the more than 70 years that CASAR ropes have been produced, we have met with many really extraordinary rope applications. One that would always make it into the top ten if such a list of highlights existed is the cable plough from Frank Föckersperger. In this type of application, as the name suggests, cables and pipes are ploughed into the ground.

Six years have now passed since CASAR introduced the new CASAR Doublefit at BAUMA 2013. Now, six years and two Munich based BAUMA’s later, it is about time to draw a conclusion - and this is overwhelmingly positive.

New year, new happiness. In the beginning of 2019, this widespread talk was also true for our colleagues from CASAR Australia. This is how you succeed, by landing a very exciting order for the largest tower crane in the world. It involves the new roping of a 330 t Favelle Favco tower crane with luffing jib of the Australian Marr Contracting PTY LTD. This crane will be used for 14 months starting in July, in order to construct the Canakkale 1915 suspension bridge over the Dardanelles, a strait in the Mediterranean between the Aegean and the Sea of Marmara. This suspension bridge has a width of 36 m and carries a 6-lane motorway. It is an important component of the US $2.8 billion difficult Kinali-Balikesir motorway project. The total length of the bridge is 5169 m, with the distance between the two main pillars being 2023 m. Measured at the span length it thus supersedes the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge in Japan and wins the title of "longest suspension bridge in the world". The completion date is set for 2023, which is the year of the one-hundredth anniversary of the establishment of modern Turkey.

Although China is the second largest coalproducing country in the world, the geological conditions of the country's coal seams are not always favorable. The coal seams in most of the existing coal-mining areas are too deep for surface mining so about 90% of China's total coal production is from underground mines.

Exactly three years ago, we reported to our “world of rope“ readers about a world record set in the Australian Northparkes mine. There, our TURBOPLAST M just achieved an unbelievable 652,239 cycles in 46 months, and brought over 22 million tons of rock up from the depths. We are proud to inform you in this issue that we have succeeded in breaking our own record. In the Slovakian mining region of Horna Nitra, the company HBP (Hornonitrianske Bane Prievidza a.s.), operates a total of three mines near the city of Prievidza. With an annual output of 1.9 million tons and over 100 years’ experience, HBP is the largest brown coal producer in Slovakia.

At the time of this newsletter’s publication, the GOA Shipyard Limited is receiving 30 new ropes for its ship hoist, the heart of the GOA Shipyard. The shipyard lies on the west coast of India, in Vasco da Gama, a city in the Indian state of Goa.

Since 2001, the Danish Odense Steel Shipyard has operated the colossal “Goliath” portal crane. It replaced the shipyard crane blown over by gale-force winds in December 1999.

This past summer, the Swiss Gelmer Funicular was extensively renovated. This is a 90 year old funicular that began operation in 1926 in the valley known as Haslital in the canton of Bern. Originally, the work line was constructed to transport material to build the wall of the Lake Gelmer dam and the water supply line for the Handeck power plant. Since opening for tourism in 2001, it has enjoyed growing popularity among young and elderly alike. As a result, the Gelmer Funicular is used by up to 45,000 passengers a year. Since the funicular continues to serve as a work line, part of the logistics infrastructure of the Grimsel power plant, it was decided that the system should undergo a complete renewal.

People have been driven by the dream of flying since time immemorial. Since April this year, this dream has come close to being achieved on the Western side of the Plitvice Lakes national park in Croatia. The municipal authorities of Vrhovina, together with the community of “Rudopolje Moje”, to which various local companies and individuals belong, have taken it upon themselves to make the area in the county of Lika- Senj more attractive to residents and visitors alike. For this reason, the “White Peak” sport and relaxation centre was founded, nestled in the magnificent landscape of Lika. As well as climbing and cycling, people have been able to dive head first into the abyss since Easter 2017. That was made possible by one of Europe’s longest and fastest zip lines, the Zip Line Pazi Medo (in English: Beware of the Bear – this region has a large population).

A SMED workshop at CASAR took place in mid-January. The aim of the 11-member cross-sectoral team was to deal with the long setup time caused by the machine’s construction type on the longest tubular strander. The team had the task of reducing the setup time through the use of suitable organisational and personnel measures. Generally, 25-strand filler braids and 26 to 31-strand Warrington-seale braids are produced on this tubular strander. The machine is frequently prepared and many spools are also prepared again and again during production.

To control production costs, increase production efficiency and continue producing the best products, CASAR’s internal processes are continually checked and improved. Moreover, for the future, the WireCo WorldGroup is making regular investments in the machine park and in new plant equipment to provide our customers with quality products of a high technical standard at a fair price.

Are we alone in the universe? All of us have asked ourselves this question at least once in our lifetimes. Since 25/09/2016, science has had at its disposal a powerful tool with the help of which it will one day be able to definitively answer this question.

The flagship of the new crawler crane model range from Manitowoc, the MLC650, impresses thanks to a number of innovative solutions. The fully modular construction of the equipment facilitates transport and the variable position counterweight maximises the performance capacity of the crane. The MLC650 thus represents an extremely exciting innovation in the 600t category.

This year, Bauma again exceeded even its own expectations, featuring more visitors, more exhibitors and more events. A record-setting number of 580,000 visitors attended the fair and our booth was certainly not complaining about a lack of visitors. Numerous trade visitors made their way to Hall B3 to keep abreast of the trends, view the latest innovations and also to meet the rope specialists from our technical and sales teams. Our experts from product development, sales and customer service held a series of information sessions and gave some fascinating insights into the latest product and technological developments. This led to some lively discussions about the optimal deployment of our products.

A unique global partnership is currently being created at the Cadarache nuclear research centre in the south of France. The ITER Tokamak Cryostat is being constructed there, the world‘s largest experimental facility for fusion energy. The objective of fusion research is to prove the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy and thereby to harness a secure, unlimited and environmentally friendly source of energy. This is intended to generate a fusion output of 500 megawatts over a period of 7 minutes. It uses the same principle as that used by the sun: light atomic nuclei are fused into heavy ones, releasing immense quantities of energy in the process. The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is a nuclear fusion reactor based on the Tokamak principle. In this process a deuterium-tritium plasma is kept in a toroidal form at approximately 150 million degrees Celsius using a magnetic field. Above a specific temperature and particle density, a controlled nuclear fusion should then occur in a chain reaction; the energy gain from this should exceed the energy consumption by a factor of 10 to enable an economical net gain in energy.

At the end of 2014, through our sister company, Lankhorst, we at CASAR received an interesting request to fit the ropes on a 40-ton AHC articulating crane of the Dutch manufacturer, Langendijk Equipment. The crane is installed on the supply ship Wildebeest, which serves oilrigs of the Edison Chouest Offshore company (ECO).

CASAR has always been known for the extraordinary performance of its mining ropes. Now they have set a new world record in Australia’s Northparkes mine, establishing a new milestone in the process. After 652,239 completed cycles, a service life of 46 months and more than 22 million tons of moved rock, the Turboplast M used for the work was gracefully retired. The rope was discarded according to plan in mid-January 2015 under the supervision of Roger Smith, an experienced expert for hightech mining ropes in the service of CASAR, and Alexander Fäh, sales engineer for mining ropes.