Teufelberger wire rope used for rescue of miners

Paul Boughton
The amazing rescue of the 33 workers from the San Jose mine in Chile has finally been brought to a successful end. During their ascent in the rescue capsule, the lives of the trapped miners depended on a rope made by Teufelberger, the manufacturer of special-purpose ropes and straps from Wels, Austria.
 
The rope was a 1000 metre long non-rotating Evolution TK 16. In this case, it had to be non-rotating, as it was absolutely necessary to prevent any rotation of the capsule during the rescue. Teufelberger's non-rotating high-performance wire ropes are made in Wels (Upper Austria) and St Aegyd (Lower Austria). 
 
In the production of ropes such as the Evolution TK16 for Chile, not only our staff's rope-making expertise is put to use, but also our experience as one of Austria's biggest processors of plastics, as the rope's core is overmoulded with plastic material. As the Wels-based maker of ropes is regarded as a specialist in both segments and combines all the necessary technologies "under one roof", it did not take us long to come up with the right rope for the winch.

"When Östu-Stettin asked us to supply the rope for the winch flown to Chile for the rescue mission, our staff went out of their way to get the steel wire rope ready for shipping as fast as possible", explains Florian Teufelberger, director of the eufelberger Group. "We owe it to the tremendous efforts of the whole team that the rope was ready for air transport within such short period of time".
 
He continued: "We are proud to have been able to contribute to the rescue of the 33 miners in Chile.As globally acting group of enterprises, we are aware of our social responsibility and will, with our utmost commitment, always find a fast solution for special challenges like this."
 
Only a few days after ÖSTÜ-Stettin's inquiry, the rope weighing almost three tons was air-lifted to Chile and mounted on the winch. Usually, such ropes are always transported via sea freight, but in this case losing several weeks in transport was not acceptable."

Teufelberger ropes are used in the challenging scenarios, for example in special civil engineering, on container loading cranes in harbours and on oil platforms. 
 
For more information, visit www.teufelberger.com

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