MOOG’s latest innovation: Design and delivery of an Inner Pier Inspection Unit to DB (German Railway)
In June 2014 MOOG delivered the Inner Pier Inspection Unit MPB 10-0,7/100 as requested by the German Railway. The requirements for MOOG were not very easy, but the company met them very successfully and carried out the project to the full satisfaction of the customer.
The MPB 10-0,7/100 consists of a winch car and a working platform. The winch car was designed and manufactured for meeting the requirements of the viaducts of the German Railway. All piers of the viaducts of the high-speed ICE railways are designed for such winch cars.
The working platform of the delivered Inner Pier Inspection Unit is not permanently installed in the piers and can be slid out the door at the pier’s ground entrance and into the next pier if necessary (depending on the bridges the platforms can also be permanently positioned inside the piers). Its length can be adjusted to the piers’ width by moving out the platform manually. That means, that the delivered MPB-0,7/100 is very flexible and can be used for several inspections of several bridge piers from the German Railway.
For inspection work the winch car is slid into the box girder of the bridge. It is then positioned above the corresponding pier with the help of an electric drive vehicle. Steel cables are let through the girder ground into the pier and are guided and protected by three permanently installed guide pulleys there. The working platform is at the ground of the pier. The cables are connected to the platform inside the pier. The platform can then be driven up and down by using the control panel which is connected to the winch car. For better stability there are support rollers on the sides of the platform, which guide it up and down along the inner wall of the pier. In this way the piers can be inspected from the inside.
The size of the working platform is 0.7 m x 5.0 m – 10.0 m and it can be lowered down up to 100.0 m. With a net weight of only 250 kg the maximum load capacity is 300 kg which is amazing. The net weight of the winch car is 1,200 kg. There is an electric cable winch installed to the winch car, which enables driving the platform up and down.
