Mid-September 2016 and the date
had finally arrived: the start of
the ship lift’s operating test finally
brought the total of 23 years of
construction work on the Three Gorges Dam
to a conclusion. Often somewhat casually
described as simply ‘the world’s largest lift’,
this ship’s lift is the ultimate in structural
superlatives and is in itself an engineering
masterpiece. At 169 metres high and weighing
15,500 tonnes, this is the biggest ship lift
in the world. The water basin is 120 m long,
18 m wide and 3.5 m deep. Some 6 million
tonnes of goods are to be transported using
the lift every year. Depending on the size of
the ship, it may take between 40 minutes and
3 hours to pass through the lift.
The start of test operations signified the end
of an era for CASAR. Since the ship’s lift project began in 2004, we and our partners at
Pfeifer are also approaching the end of 12
years of intensive collaboration. We deliberately chose to accompany the project from
start to finish, because we see ourselves not
only as a rope supplier alone, but as being in
a position to contribute valuable know-how,
which we have already mastered in countless
other ship’s lift and lifting bridge projects.
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