The Wheel (as it is known) is a unique lifting bridge designed to reconnect the Forth & Clyde and Union canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland. It is the world’s first rotating boat lift and the first boat lift to be built in the UK since 1875.
The project is part of a £78m British Waterways scheme to restore the two canals to their former glory. Construction of the interchange section, which comprises the Wheel, an elevated aqueduct at its upper end and a holding basin at its lower, is being led by a joint venture of Morrison and Bachy-Soletanche. Butterley Engineering, designers and manufacturers of the wheel, Tony Gee and Partners, structural engineering specialists and Bennett Associates, M&E engineering specialists and architects RMJM Scotland Ltd. complete the team.
The Wheel has an outside diameter of 35m, and comprises two 1.4m wide steel, clawed arms rotating on a 3.5 m diameter axle. A pair of 25m long, 300 m3 water filled caissons (or "gondolas") act as containers for boats which are lifted through the 24m vertical distance between the two canals. Drive is provided at one end of the axle through a system of hydraulic planetary gear units, with stability of the caissons ensured by a network of synchronised gears. It is capable of carrying a total payload of 600 tonnes in winds of Beaufort Force 6 (25-31 miles per hour). Boat transfer time is about 15 minutes.
Негізгі бет INCREDIBLE FALKIRK WHEEL
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