Schaeffler Bearings Keep Lock
Gates And Valves Moving On
The Panama Canal
A
fter a nine-year construction
period, the new, third
channel of the Panama
Canal opened in June
2016, eliminating a bottleneck for global
commercial shipping. Schaeffler has
supplied more than 3,400 rolling bearings
for the canal’s water management systems,
including lock gates and valves.The new
channel enables ships with a maximum
length of 366 metres (984 feet) and a width
of around 50 metres (164 feet) to travel
this shortcut between the Atlantic and the
Pacific Oceans. Until now, the passage was
restricted to ships that were no more than
290 metres (951 feet) long and 32 metres
(105 feet) wide.
16
PECM Issue 22
Bearings for reliable lock operation
Components from Schaeffler play a key
role in the operation of the lock gates. The
locks are required on both the Atlantic and
the Pacific side to allow ships to overcome
the 26-metre height difference and pass
through the interior of the country. This
is achieved using three consecutive locks
that are flooded with water from adjoining
reservoirs. The reinforced concrete lock
gates are enormous – 50 metres (164 feet)
wide, 30 metres (98 feet) high and 10
metres (33 feet) thick.
For safety reasons, two gates have
been installed for each barrage
that open to the side. The
mechanism for opening and
closing the gates was developed
by Italian engineering company
Cimolai Technology. To open and
close the gates, each gate has two
main drive units that power a cable
winch. The drums of the steel cable
winches are supported by spherical
roller bearings from Schaeffler.
As extremely high torques of up to
330,000 Nm are required to move the
gates, a gearbox is required on each,
which increases the torque of the electric
motors by a factor of 280. The gearboxes
developed by PIV Drives, part of the
Brevini Group, are equipped exclusively
with tapered, spherical and cylindrical
roller bearings from Schaeffler. Most of
the bearings are coated with Schaeffler’s
Triondur C in order to prevent wear and
ensure their operat ion over 35 years.
At the top and bottom of the reservoirs
are two carriages, which guide the
3,100-tonne gates. Here, guide pulleys
are used that must withstand not only
the dead weight of the gates, but also the
pressure of 430 million litres of water per
reservoir. The guide pulleys are equipped
with spherical roller bearings from
Schaeffler.