Rothensee boat lift
The Rothensee ship lift is located north of Magdeburg and bridges the difference in height between the Mittelland Canal and the Rothensee connecting canal , which connects with the Elbe and Magdeburg harbor. The ship lift is a technical monument.
meaning
When construction began in the 1930s, a trough bridge was also planned over the Elbe. However, it was not completed before the Second World War . In the GDR era, this planning was no longer pursued. It was only built as a Magdeburg waterway intersection in the course of the German Unity Transport Project (VDE No. 17). Originally, the ship lift was therefore only intended to connect the Elbe and Saale to the Mittelland Canal. As the Elbe was not bridged for more than six decades, the ship lift became significantly more important. The entire ship traffic from the industrial centers of Western Europe to West Berlin passed through the ship lift.
With the completion of the parallel Rothensee sluice lock in 2001, which is also designed for larger types of ships, the ship lift lost its importance for transport. At first it remained in operation as a technical monument. The Federal Audit Office warned that the ship lift would be unprofitable if operated in parallel. For this reason, the operation of the ship lift was stopped between the end of 2006 and August 2013, although there were plans to cover the float shafts with concrete and thus make it impossible to restart them. An intensive campaign in and around Magdeburg meant that these plans were not implemented.
On August 24, 2013 the ship lift was put back into operation.
technology
The ship lift has to compensate for a height difference of 16 meters with normal water levels. However, depending on the water level of the Elbe, the value can fluctuate between 11 and 18 meters. The lifting time is 3 minutes. The entire handling, including the entry of the ship, closing and opening of the gates, takes around 20 minutes. Around 70 ships with a total load of 45,000 tons can be transported every day. The permitted ship size is 1,000 tons.
The construction of the Rothensee boat lift is that of a float lift , comparable to the Henrichenburg boat lift . It is based on the patented plans by Rudolf Mussaeus . The 85 meter long and 12.2 meter wide trough of the ship lift is held in suspension by two 36 meter high diving floats with a diameter of 10 meters. The floats are immersed in two 60 meter deep diving shafts, they are always completely under water. The floats are divided into three chambers and each chamber is filled with compressed air according to its diving depth to prevent implosion . The buoyancy of these floating bodies ensures that a balance is created with the 5,400 ton trough, including the ship and water load. The trough is moved by four threaded spindles with a length of 27.30 m and 42 cm diameter, on which the trough is electrically moved up and down. Due to the static equilibrium between the trough and the floating bodies, only the inertia and the friction as well as the changing buoyancy of the supporting scaffolding have to be overcome. The power for the lifting movement is therefore less than 500 kW. The thread blocks rotating around the four fixed spindles are moved by eight 44 kW electric motors .
This construction method was chosen because at the time the system was built, a lock over this height difference was not technically feasible. It also saves pumping costs. The lock, which now exists in parallel, has to pump back up to 110 million m³ of water over the course of a year. This roughly corresponds to the entire content of the Rappbode Dam . According to today's electricity costs, the pumping costs per lock are approx. 400 euros. The boat lift only needs 5 euros for an ascent or descent.
The total height of the boat lift, measured from the bottom of the underground floating shafts to the upper cross members, is 97.21 m. The water level in the trough is usually 2.50 m.
Construction and history
For the construction of the plant, which was inaugurated in 1938, 225,000 m³ of earth were moved and 55,000 m³ of concrete were required. In addition to the Magdeburg Friedrich Krupp AG Grusonwerk, the Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen ( Sterkrade works ), the MAN Gustavsburg works and the Siemens-Schuckertwerke were involved in the construction. In the immediate vicinity of the ship lift, the factory settlement of the ship lift was built .
In the first 50 years of existence, around 730,000 trough journeys were carried out without major disruptions. In 1980/1981 a general overhaul took place over 18 months.
literature
- Rothensee ship lift - October 30, 1938 - Published for commissioning by the suppliers involved in the execution - Festschrift
- Karl Jüngel: The waterway cross near Magdeburg. Publishing house Mittelelbe, Wittenberg 2004.
- Sabine Ullrich: Magdeburg - architecture and urban development. Stekovics et al., Halle 2001, ISBN 3-929330-33-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rothensee ship lift: The main thing is that the six gates hold! | Volksstimme.de - News from Saxony-Anhalt - Magdeburger Volksstimme: Local news and reports. In: volksstimme.de. August 24, 2013. Retrieved August 24, 2013 .
- ↑ ▶ Reopening of the Magdeburg-Rothensee ship lift - YouTube. (Video) In: Open Canal Magdeburg. August 24, 2013. Retrieved August 24, 2013 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 13 ′ 25.5 " N , 11 ° 40 ′ 21.2" E