The new ship lift in Niederfinow enters the final stage of assembly
With the assembly of the counterweights for the new ship lift at Niederfinow, we are now entering one of the most spectacular phases of the construction project. 220 concrete weights with a total weight of approximately 10,000 tonnes will be connected to the pre-assembled cables in accordance with a precisely worked out schedule. These provide the counterweight to the steel trough of the ship lift.
With the assembly of the counterweights for the new ship lift at Niederfinow, we are now entering one of the most spectacular phases of the construction project. 220 concrete weights with a total weight of approximately 10,000 tonnes will be connected to the pre-assembled cables in accordance with a precisely worked out schedule. These provide the counterweight to the steel trough of the ship lift.
During the assembly process, the empty trough will be gradually ballasted with big packs filled with sand as a replacement for the subsequent water load, amounting to approximately 6,500 tonnes. In order to precisely balance out the trough and counterweights during assembly and thus guarantee the stability of the trough in each of the individual assembly steps, the trough loads will be controlled during the counterweight assembly by means of a synchronous lifting facility using hydraulic jacks.
Working together with Germanischer Lloyd and the company Spezialbau Engineering, KREBS+KIEFER will be verifying the stability of the overall structure of the ship lift, including the steel civil engineering hydraulics and mechanical engineering, and will also be verifying the conditions when installed.
