24.09.2019

Wolffkran buys into fibre rope start up

Wolffkran has acquired a stake in the new German fibre rope manufacturer Trowis.

Trowis ropes will be produced at a production facility in Chemnitz, eastern Germany, under joint managing directors and co-owners Thorsten Heinze and Peter Streubel. The new rope has been in the development and testing stage since 2006, by the two partners at the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida, and was brought to market as a start up business earlier this year with assistance from Wolffkran.

The company’s fibre rope for cranes will now undergo further testing at the Wolffkran factory in Brandenburg and on Wolff tower cranes at selected job sites. After completion of the field testing phase, both companies will bring the new fibre rope to market.

The Trowis rope features are unusual in the they incorporate integrated sensors that are able to monitor potential breaks in the outer material, alerting the crane operator to the situation, well before the loadbearing reserve built into the rope is reached.

The fibre rope weighs up to 80 percent less than conventional steel wire ropes, allowing for higher lifting capacities as well as a significantly faster and safer assembly and replacement. Trowis also claims that its fibre ropes have 80 percent less initial stretch than other fibre ropes, and a service life that is up to seven times longer than that of steel ropes due to a high performance lubricant being incorporated into the rope at the production stage.