In today’s world, seaport cranes have not only increased in volume at the ports, but have also increased in speed, acceleration and in the amount of constant use. The need for a machine that exhibits little downtime is mandatory. The workload for the RMG’s serving the CTA Terminal in Hamburg is enormous, causing continuous wear and tear on all of the components of cranes, especially to the cable found on these machines. Therefore, they demand that the cable used have a five-seven year working life, or 12,500 hours which is equal to approx. 160,000 KM on the crane drives.
Draka with more than 40 years experience (20 years with integrated fibre optics) in designing and manufacturing medium voltage reeling cables for RMG’s for Seaports, Intermodal Terminals, Industrial sites and with factories both in Germany and the United States, engineered cable specifically for use with these RMG’s. The high performance cable addressed the essential need of continuing to function while under going extreme mechanical stress.
Since 2001, Draka Cables have been used in the CTA Terminal in Hamburg. Although the cables were designed to meet the RMG’s specifications, the need to monitor the performance of the cable as well as recognizing the need for preventive maintenance is also of utmost importance. In responding to this need, Draka developed a dedicated data base that contains all of the essential information in regards to every crane project it participated in.
The extensive data base includes technical information, and also the service hours of individual cranes built with Draka cable. Customers are an essential part of this database, as they supply Draka with cable performance information. By maintaining this data base, Draka analyzes the information on the performance of all of its cables on cranes which allows it to be pro-active in continuous improvement for all of its products, especially with the increased demands on reeling cables in automated terminals.
Reeling cables are an integral part of every crane and by working closely with equipment manufacturers, integrators as well as end users, Draka provides customers with highly engineered and designed cable that maintains high performance in order to meet the on-going demands and changes within the industry.
