The strongest rope in the world is made of carbon nanotubes.
There are two ways to get to the summit of the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany, for walkers and winter visitors.Each of these steel wire ropes is 4900m in length, 72mm in diameter and has a specific weight of 29.75 kilogram per meter for an impressive total weight.
The world's strongest cable car ropes were manufactured by Fatzer AG Wire Ropes of Romanshorn in Switzerland.They had to travel over 200 km to the customer.The Swiss Feldmann Pneukran + Transport AG had no other choice but to develop a one-off solution for the vehicle configuration.Rope drums were made so that the rig could travel along the autobahns.Each rope was divided between two drums on two vehicles in a push- pull configuration for the full distance of the journey.This was a challenging mission with an overall rig length of more than 54m.
The wire rope had to be wound onto the front drum at the destination before it could be installed.To transport the drum without exceeding the legal height limit of 4.3m, the transport experts designed a solution to trim the top segment.The development of the world's first dedicated wire rope drum bridge, with a capacity of 100 tons, was pioneered by the Feldmann team working in collaboration with Goldhofers design engineers.
The design of the bridge was the brainchild of Marcel Guilbert and was implemented in cooperation with Goldhofer.In the heavy-duty module department, this vehicle is considered a real workhorse and is used for long-distance operations.This type of trailer has a maximum load of 23 tons.The Wipfli Transporte company provided the rear vehicle for the rope drum.The first journey could begin on a route from Switzerland to Germany via Austria if the ropes had been apportioned and loaded on the two transporters.
There were many roundabouts to be negotiated.The THP/ET's suspension system did a great job, even though it was not always easy.There were a number of road signs that had to be taken down in the centre of the village.The last leg of the journey had a gradient of over 14 percent.In spite of the wet road, the 252-ton rig took that in its stride, and the first rope arrived at its destination without any incidents.The journeys went off without a hitch.We are a little bit proud of the fact that we were able to develop a completely new solution in collaboration with Goldhofer.The police officers were surprised to see the little Swiss turn up with such a great idea.I can only say that I would do it the same way the next time.