Example 13: tested, control cable CF9

tested live: Container crane with 50m travel

Energy supply systems are increasingly proving their technical and economic strength in crane construction, with flexibility, variability and space-saving assembly being just some of the most important criteria. The cables are an important component of a cable carrier system. Here, users expect a high level of functional reliability.

igus®® cables are subjected to constant testing in the chainflex®® laboratory. This provides important findings for the service life of a cable, which can be used to derive improvements for future cable designs. However, it becomes particularly exciting when the rare opportunity arises to take cables from real, hard applications and analyse them.

Current investigationThechainflex®® -cable CF9.60.05 has been used in container cranes for years, in this case with a total travel distance of approx. 47 m. An investigation order from the operator was to establish a performance balance after over 40,000 chain kilometres and determine when preventive maintenance should be expected for the other devices.

After the CF9.60.05 was removed, tests were carried out with the following objectives:

1. outer jacket, abrasion behaviour, other damage
2. Overall stranding, insulation behaviour of the individual core
3. strand structure, number of possible individual broken wires that could indicate an imminent failure of the entire cable.

In summary, it can be stated that this cable used in a real crane application in the second trolley of an STS crane is completely intact even after more than 40,000 km and that preventive maintenance is not necessary.