Safe cable guidance on STS cranes at high wind speeds

Saving time and costs: e-chains replace festoonings for crane booms

With this ship-to-shore crane, it is not just the container that can be raised and lowered; the entire crane girder can be moved vertically. This significantly shortens the lifting and lowering time. However, the previous energy supply solution with free-hanging cables was very vulnerable as they regularly became tangled in strong winds and had to be untangled again with a considerable effort of up to 30 working hours. The new e-chains from our company, however, guide the cables safely now.

Profile

What was needed: plastic energy chains
Requirements: a reliable cable guidance system that could safely move all cables, even at wind speeds of over 70km/h at the port.
Industry: crane technology
Success for the customer: the cables in the old festooning system became tangled up and had to be untangled in a time-consuming and costly manner to prevent damage. Thanks to the e-chain, such work is now completely eliminated. After the first few months, the system proved to be the right choice.

Problem

The special feature of this ship-to-shore crane is its jib (trolley girder), which makes it possible to drive very close to the containers to be loaded on ships, significantly reducing loading and unloading time. However, the system requires an enormous amount of power, communication, control and fibre optic cables. The problem in the application relates to the layout of the cable guidance, in which it is hung freely similarly to a festooning system. With winds in excess of 45 miles per hour, the cables became so tangled that it took between 20-30 man hours to rearrange the system. If the boom was raised or lowered without these precautions, it was assumed that the cables would be damaged and expensive repairs would result.

Solution

To avoid time-consuming and cost-intensive maintenance work on the cables in future, the operator decided on a new concept for cable guidance. The customer found the solution in a plastic energy chain from our company, more specifically a guidelok e-chain. Due to the large number of cables, two such chains run in parallel. The free-hanging chains connect the boom for picking up the containers with the E-house of the crane and guide all cables safely and reliably. It was important to the operators that the cable guidance system offered sufficient flexibility for the boom to move without restriction during lifting and lowering.
The redesign of the cable guidance was worthwhile and became apparent within the first few months after installation. Since then, the port has already experienced wind speeds of more than 70km/h on several days and not a single failure of the energy chain system or the attached cables has been detected.

Overview of polymer energy chains

Overview of guidelok energy chains