Crime scene: Bridge of the Century
No one could have foreseen the dangers STAUFF clamps would face at the Panama Canal
For shipping, the Panama Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. This eliminates the need for cargo and passenger ships to travel around the dreaded Cape Horn or through the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. Similarly, the artificial, approximately 82-kilometre-long waterway cuts through the country and divides it in half.
When the only bridge over the canal became increasingly overloaded, a second connection had to be created. Thus, in only 27 months of construction, the 1052-metre-long Puente Centenario (English: Centennial Bridge) was built and inaugurated on 15 August 2004.
The deck of the cable-stayed bridge is supported by steel cables on two 184-metre-high concrete pylons. Around 66,000 cubic metres of concrete, 12,000 tonnes of steel reinforcement plus 1,000 tonnes of steel construction parts and 1,400 tonnes of cables were used to build the bridge.
STAUFF Pipe Clamps in the Standard Series according to DIN 3015, Part 1 are used on the substructure of the Centennial Bridge to securely fasten control and supply lines. What nobody could have foreseen during the construction of the structure were the dangers to which the clamps would be exposed due to their positioning in close vicinity to the ground.
Clamps live dangerously
These samples of Polypropylene clamps, which were literally "thrown to the crocodiles" in the Panama Canal, reached STAUFF soon after the inauguration of the bridge, as the operators had serious doubts about their proper functionality.
Urgent replacements required? No problem for STAUFF!
Thanks to unrivalled stock availability of pipe, tube and hose clamps in all conceivable versions at the STAUFF Logistics Centre in Neuenrade-Küntrop (Germany) and the regional warehouses worldwide, it is ensured that even urgent requirements for spare parts can be covered as quickly as possible.
STAUFF subsidiaries in currently 18 countries and a worldwide network of system and sales partners in all industrial regions also offer customers and users numerous other value-added services on site, e.g. from optimising pipe, tube or hose routing to selecting the most suitabe products.
