What to expect when igus® are involved with a floating pontoon
Floating pontoons have various uses but the ones igus® frequently work on are fuelling pontoons. But what is a floating pontoon? By definition, a pontoon is; a flat-bottomed boat or a series of hollow metal cylinders to support a temporary bridge or floating landing stage.
It is essential to have systems which ensure that fuel hoses can supply fuel to vessels from land to these floating platforms.
Despite the current climate of non-physical visits, our onsite team had the challenge of installing such a system. The project had been in the pipeline for approx. 6 months, with constant communication between igus® and the customer, ensuring that all areas of the application were covered. The requirement was to get fuelling hoses from the quay to the pontoon. Usually there is little to no management of these hoses, which causes reliability issues in the fuel supply. Worst case scenario is fuel spilling into the sea causing environmental hazards, damage and loss of “stock”. This is why the new system is reliable, suitable and can have a predictable life cycle.
A live example
The recent particular project was on a floating fuelling pontoon application. The system was replacing loose hanging hoses, which were hoisted up using a pulley system. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of issues with the flow of fuel and there were also issues with floating objects, including boats colliding into them, causing spillage of fuel into the sea which is definitely not what we want!
This system has now been fully converted to an igus® energy chain system using our full turnkey design, installation and commissioning service. This includes running new static fuel pipes around the quay walls, the installation of gate valves and in line Harting connectors. This enables a disconnection of cables and hoses to aid future maintenance works on the pontoon.
This system is combined with a custom stainless-steel trough to support an E4.80 hanging e-chain.
The highlights on this particular project for the customer were: the ease in project design, manufacture, supply, installation and commissioning which was sourced from one supplier with full responsibility, igus®!
Another unique selling point for the customer is the mechanical protection of the hoses and cables. The e-chain® whilst offering a standardised travel motion of the hoses and cables improves the lifetime of the system and reduces maintenance.
The full project service allows the customer to relinquish responsibility onto us. It is our job to ensure that the project is successful, that the support required by the customer is met.
