For heavy-duty use: cable on container cranes in use for over 12 years

Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) is responsible for handling several million TEU at its four container terminals in just one quarter. According to HHLA, the Container Terminal Altenwerder is one of the most productive and modern container handling facilities in the world.
The quay of the CTA offers space for four large container ships, which are loaded and unloaded from 14 container gantry cranes. Two-trolley container gantry cranes are used here. The main trolley takes over the transport from the ship to a platform located in the centre of the gantry crane. From there, a second trolley - the gantry trolley - transports the container fully automatically onto one of the "Automated Guided Vehicles" (AGVs).
At that time in 2002, the energy supply to the trolleys of ship-to-shore cranes (StS) was usually still carried out using festoon systems, but designers wanted to break new ground here with energy chain systems.
They considered the old system to be at a disadvantage, as the approx. 50 per cent longer cable length and the higher weight per metre of the festooning cable was around 30 per cent heavier than an energy chain system.
For the new e-chain system®, it was necessary to ensure a large number of energy and signal cables to supply the gantry trolley, with a cable load of around 14 kilograms per metre.
With a high handling frequency and a 54 metre long travel, the chain system was also subject to high dynamics with speeds of up to 240 m/min. as well as constant weather loads, which also placed considerable demands on the permanently moving cables within the e-chain®.

The decision to replace the festooning systems still in use on the gantry trolleys in 2002 with energy chains was made by the responsible design engineers, who believed that this type of energy supply system would have a longer service life. They also took into account the more compact design of the energy chain.
Due to the large number of cables, two E4 5050 RHD energy chains working in reverse are installed on each of the container gantry cranes. They weigh between 13 and 15 kilograms per metre. The energy chains for the CTA cranes were produced in Cologne in 2002 as "readychain®". This means that the chains were filled, fitted with all accessories and connection elements and delivered to the manufacturer of the container gantry cranes ready for connection together with the trough.
Equipping a StS container crane with an energy chain instead of a festoon for the first time was a novelty at the time, but the new experiences were consistently positive. In 2014, when igus® met with the operator, the first chainflex® cable set was installed. At this point, they have probably already handled several 100,000 container movements. One advantage of the chainflex® cables is that they are specially developed, tested and manufactured for use in energy chains and are designed for moving applications.
The highly bending-resistant cables are tested for their performance in the 1,750 square metre test laboratory in Cologne, the largest for moving cables, with over two billion test cycles per year.
In addition to the high load limit and endurance, the cables offer the advantage of a smaller bend radius and save weight compared to conventional multi-core cables.
CTA and igus® also removed and analysed a control cable after six years on a trial basis. The result: the cable was still as good as new after a six-digit number of cycles. The highly abrasion-resistant jacket made from a TPE compound specially developed for this purpose, the choice of materials for the insulation, the way the cable is stranded and the production to extremely high quality standards all contribute to this.