World’s largest aluminium smelting plant turns to Kabelschlepp

When Aluminium Norf (Alunorf) needed to replace the festoon system of a crane facility with a travel length of over 30 metres for handling aluminium coils, it turned to Kabelschlepp Metool for a complete cable carrier solution.

In 2021, Alunorf wanted to replace the aging cable carrier system on the crane and contacted Kabelschlepp Metool, based to the manufacturer’s longstanding experience and great expertise in the field of cable carriers for cranes. There were essentially two reasons for replacing the cable carrier: on the one hand, new cables for data transfer had been added, which had to be included in the cable carrier.

On the other hand, the customer wanted to remove a safety flaw: the driver on the old festoon system moved at standing height and made it very dangerous for anyone to be near it, for example during maintenance work. Another requirement was to change the existing structure of the system as little as possible for reasons of structural integrity.

The experts at Kabelschlepp Metool configured and delivered a customised substructure. It allowed for the interfaces of the old suspended cable to be reused and for easy installation of the new cable carrier. Two cable carriers of type MC0950 with opposite arrangement were used in a gliding application. This makes it possible to guide the data and power cables separately and therefore prevent any interference.

The customer service team at Kabelschlepp Metool installed and implemented the complete system with cable carriers, substructure, cables, guide channel and driver connection during the shutdown period over Christmas.

It was a benefit for Alunorf that everything for this project came from a single source – from planning the solution and designing the driver arm to the complete installation of the cable carrier, and of course maintenance. “We ordered and received a complete package,” says Thomas Bellinghausen, transport systems engineer at Aluminium Norf. The company has also contracted Kabelschlepp Metool for regular maintenance visits.