Example 13: tested, control cable CF9

Tested live: container crane with 50 m travel

igus® energy supply system of approximately 26 m length in a stainless steel trough with medium-wide strip support.

In crane construction, energy supply systems increasingly prove their technical and economic strengths. Flexibility, variability and a space-saving installation are only some of the most important criteria. The cables are an important module of the energy supply system. Here users expect a high functional reliability.

igus® cables are continuously tested in the chainflex® laboratory. Significant knowledge about the service life of a cable was thereby gained, which helped in arriving at improvements for the future cable assembly. It becomes particularly interesting when there is a rare opportunity to take cables from real, tough applications and test them.

Current test The chainflex® cable CF9.60.05 is used in container cranes for years, in this case with a total travel of approx 47 m. A test assignment by the operator was meant to highlight a performance rating after more than 40,000 chain kilometers and to determine when to expect a preventive maintenance for the other equipment.

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

Outer jacket, wear characteristics, other damages
Entire stranding, insulation behavior of the individual cores
Strand structure and the number of potential, single broken wires, which might point to an early failure of the entire cable.

Result for 1: No or barely measurable wear marks could be detected on the extremely abrasion-resistant TPE outer jacket. Thereby a failure due to abrasion or jacket breakage is not to be expected despite the strong ambient influences (temperature differences, UV radiation, etc.).

igus® energy supply system of approximately 26 m length in a stainless steel trough with medium-wide strip support.

Result for 2: Due to the gusset-filling, pressure extruded outer jacket, the entire stranding showed no symptoms of fatigue and had not changed its pitch. Due to the high amount of talcum, no abrasion could be detected between the TPE-insulated cores. The high voltage tests did not show any age-related changes.

Result for 3: The cable was opened up to the copper conductor in the most stressed area of the radius. The test of the individual wires, after completing over 40,000 km, did not show any fatigue breaks here, which would be an early indicator of cable failure.

To summarize the results in this real crane application, the cable used in the second trolley of an STS crane is completely intact even after 40,000 km and a preventive maintenance will not be necessary.