Extend product service life efficiently in the crane industry : smart plastics

Heavy loads, long periods of use, and a wide variety of weather conditions – cranes in port facilities must perform at their best. Their fields of application include, among others, ship-to-shore cranes, bulk cargo handling cranes, RTGs, RMGs, Goliath cranes, spreaders, and reach stackers.

Where there is deadline pressure and a need to guarantee safety, intelligent concepts in the form of predictive maintenance make the most sense. For a new Industry 4.0 project or for efficiency-driven retrofitting, our smart plastics solutions are available as universal modular systems and can be individually adapted to any system. 

Unplanned downtimes and thus enormous production losses can be efficiently avoided.

Ship-to-shore cranes (STS)

Energy chains with integrated rollers reduce the friction of movement and thus reduce wear. In the latest development stage of the igus rol e-chains, use of maintenance-free, tribo-polymer plain bearings considerably lengthens the service life. Also, the new P4HD can be equipped with smart monitoring sensors. The sensor is integrated into a standard side part of the chain, which does not lead to any restrictions in the usable inner width. Our energy chain systems can be installed on all types of Ship-to-Shore cranes, whether it is a double trolley, shuttle boom or gooseneck design.


 

Gantry cranes (RTG / RMG)

For a long time now, igus has been driving the changes in the cable guidance systems of RTGs. Today the energy chain system is a well established cable guidance system for trolley travel, in use on numerous RTGs around the world. The heavy-duty series 4040(R)HD chain, as a gliding or roller chain version, is the preferred choice. Also the igus chainflex cables, with TPE outer jackets, have proved to be long lasting in this demanding environment. And if you want to be on the safe side, you can use the new i.Sense CF.D for the continuous condition monitoring of cable specifications. 

 

Automated Stacking Cranes (ASC)

Since the crane operator's workplace is moving away from the crane to the office and being responsible for several cranes at the same time - due to crane automation - the ever more modern automatic stacking cranes not only require a reliable cable guidance system, but also the possibility of being able to report the current operating status from anywhere and at any time. This is achieved with the i.Cee dashboard which can be integrated online in the Internet or on site in the local network. This means that the current operating data can be accessed either via a display on the crane, via a cloud solution or an IoT dashboard, via the REST API interface or even directly via SMS or e-mail.

i.Cee:local

Your data does not leave your company network at any time, as the i.Cee software only communicates within the networks of your choice. In the process, the information spectrum ranges from a single energy chain within a machine up to a complete machine pool and its own output interface.  

i.Cee:cloud

With the internet-based solution, there are two ways: either the sensors transmit their data directly to the cloud, where it is made available in a protected area via a browser dashboard. Or they make a stopover via the i.Cee.net, a so-called data concentrator. The i.Cee.net is at your location, allowing you to adjust data exchange with the cloud at any time.

Heavy loads, long periods of use, and a wide variety of weather conditions – cranes in port facilities must perform at their best. And that is exactly where our energy chains and flexible cables are being used. They have proven themselves for years in more than 10,000 ports with their corrosion-resistant, maintenance-free materials and long service life. The fields of application include, amongst others: ship-to-shore cranes, bulk cargo handling cranes, RTGs, RMGs, Goliath cranes, spreaders and reach stackers. Wherever safety must be ensured and there is pressure to meet deadlines, e-chains® are a reliable, quiet alternative to busbar systems, festooning and cable drums.