Rothensee boat lift
The boat lift Rothensee is located north of Magdeburg and bridges the difference in height between the Midland Canal and the Rothenseer channel, which connects the Elbe and the Magdeburg harbor. The boat lift is a technical monument.
Importance
Even the start of construction in the 1930s, a trough bridge over the Elbe was planned. However, it was not completed before the Second World War. In the communist era, this plan was not pursued further. Only in the course of German Unity Transport Projects (VDE ) it was built as Magdeburg Water Bridge (VDE No. 17). Originally, the boat lift was therefore intended only as connection of the Elbe and Saale to the Mittelland Canal. Through more than six decades is not taking place bridging the River Elbe, the boat lift was of much greater importance. The entire ship traffic from the industrial centers of Western Europe to West Berlin passed the boat lift.
With the completion of the parallel sluice Rothensee in 2001, which is designed for larger ship types, the ship lift lost its traffic engineering significance. First, it remained as a technical monument in operation. The Federal Audit Office warned the unprofitability of the boat lift in parallel operation. For this reason, the operation of the ship lift between late 2006 and August 2013 was set, in which there were plans concreting over the float bays and thus to make a restart impossible. An intensive campaign in and around Magdeburg has meant that these plans were not implemented.
On August 24, 2013, the boat lift was put back into operation.
Technology
The boat lift has to compensate for a difference in height of 16 meters at normal water levels. However, depending on the water level of the Elbe, the value can range between 11 to 18 meters. The stroke time is 3 minutes. The total clearance with retraction of the ship, opening and closing of the gates takes about 20 minutes. Every day can be transported with a total load of 45,000 tons, some 70 vessels. The allowable size of the ship is 1,000 tons.
The manner of construction of the ship lift Rothensee is that of a swimmer hoist, comparable to the ship Henrichenburg. It is based on the patented design by Rudolf Mussaeus. The 85 meters long and 12.2 meters wide trough of the hydraulic lift is held by two 36 meter high dive float with a diameter of 10 meters in the air. The floats appear in two 60-meter deep diving one bays. The floats are divided into three chambers and each chamber is filled according to its depth with compressed air to prevent an implosion. The buoyancy of the float ensures that a balance of 5,400 ton Trough, including marine and water load arises. The movement of the tub by means of four threaded spindles with a length of 27.30 m and 42 cm in diameter, in which the trough is electrically moved up and down. By existing between trough and floats static equilibrium can only be overcome inertia and friction as well as the changing buoyancy of the supportive scaffolding for the movement. Therefore, the power for the lifting movement is below 500 kW. The rotating around the four fixed screws thread blocks are moved from eight 44 -kW electric motors.
This design was chosen because at the time of construction of the plant, a lock was not technically realize about this height difference. In addition, you saved so pumping costs. Today's parallel existing lock to pump back up to 110 million cubic meters of water in the course of a year. This is roughly equivalent to the entire contents of Rappbode reservoir. The pumping cost is about 400 euros according to today's electricity costs per smuggling. The boat lift requires only 5 EUR for uphill or downhill.
The total height of the ship lift, measured from the bottom of the underground swimming bays to the upper cross members, is 97.21 m. The water level in the trough is usually 2.50 m.
Building and history
For the construction of the plant was inaugurated in 1938 225,000 cubic meters of earth were moved and 55,000 cubic meters of concrete needed. On building was next to the Magdeburg Friedrich Krupp AG Grusonwerk, Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen ( Sterkrade plant ), which involved the MAN plant Gustav castle and the Siemens - Schuckert. In the immediate vicinity of the ship lift at the factory housing settlement boat lift was built.
In the first 50 years of existence about 730,000 trough runs were carried out without there would have been major disturbances. In the years 1980/1981 was carried out over 18 months, a general repair.