USA

Grand Couleé Dam

Service winch for maintenance works in a shaft.

• For a hydro power plant at the Grand Couleé Dam at the Columbia River in the USA a special winch was developed to perform maintenance and service works in a large, inclined shaft. The electro-mechanical winch was approved for limited manpower transportation to transport assemblers, machine operators and construction workers to inaccessible places in the shaft. For this purpose, a specially made platform was lowered or lifted in the shaft. The winch, which had numerous safety features due to the transport of personnel, could be precisely controlled via a joystick on the control panel.