Pressurized waterworks
The pressurized waterworks at Frankfurt's Westhafen served to supply the hydraulic drives (including water motors ) of the port facilities. The neo-Romanesque machine house with two flanking towers was built in brickwork from 1886 to 1888 and received its present form in the years 1898 to 1899.
The technical facilities were shut down around 1960. As part of the conversion of the former port area into a new business and residential area, the former pressurized waterworks was renovated. It is a listed building and is part of the Rhine-Main Industrial Culture Route . Since June 2009 it houses a restaurant.
technology
Two steam engines of 50 HP each , together around 74 kW, and two hydraulic pumps generated 13.5 liters of water per second at a pressure of 50 atmospheres and fed them into the port's network of pipes. The main pressure pipeline had a nominal diameter of 150 millimeters. It ran as a ring line along the northern harbor quay from the state railway bridge - from 1891 Wilhelmsbrücke - to the Main-Neckar bridge , from 1891 also over both bridges and along the south bank. Two pressurized water accumulators, each with a capacity of 690 liters, in the pressurized waterworks and on the southern bridge head of the Wilhelmsbrücke took care of the pressure equalization.
Another pipeline with a diameter of 80 millimeters led over the south pier of the western harbor. A total of 183 pressurized water hydrants were located in the ring lines at intervals of 12 meters to supply the hydraulic drives. In addition to the eleven hydraulic loading cranes - five of them on the south bank - with a lifting force of 1,500 kilograms each, that was enough to also have the capstan system with six hydraulic winches for moving the ships and maneuvering the freight wagons, several transfer platforms , elevators in the warehouses and a mobile grain elevator to drive. The elevator conveyed up to 36 tons of grain per hour over more than 9 meters from the hold of a ship and via a built-in automatic scale to the bagging system. The goods were transported from the quays to the warehouses via conveyor belts , which were also driven by hydraulics .
The exclusive use of hydraulic drives was expensive, but compared to the drives by stationary steam engines and transmissions that were common at the time, it had the advantage of greater fire safety.
The two hydraulic lifting platforms below the Wilhelmsbrücke were a special feature. There was a height difference of 5.50 meters between the tracks of the Prussian state railway crossing the bridge and the tracks of the connecting railway running at right angles to the port . The lifting devices were able to raise or lower the freight cars, which weighed up to 18 tons, in six minutes. The wagons had to be rotated 90 degrees on a turntable so that they could switch from one train to the other. Due to the complex operating procedure and the low capacity of 20 trolleys per hour, the lifting devices were only in operation for a few years.
literature
- Volker Rödel, civil engineering in Frankfurt am Main 1806-1914 . Frankfurt am Main 1983. Societäts-Verlag, ISBN 3-7973-0410-2 , pp. 33-36
Web links
- Website of the pressurized waterworks (accessed September 25, 2009)
- Exhibition from 2007 with photographs of the former pressurized water works (accessed September 25, 2009)
Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 49.1 ″ N , 8 ° 39 ′ 12.3 ″ E