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Earthquake-resistant: New high-bay warehouse from Xiashun holds 800 aluminium coils

Vollert Anlagenbau GmbH from Weinsberg, Germany, is developing an entire intralogistic system with a fully automated high-bay warehouse for Asia’s leading aluminium foil manufacturer. The contract from China, with a total volume of approximately thirteen million Euro, is no easy task: The warehouse, which has a capacity of around 14,000 tons, is located in one of the most dangerous earthquake regions in the world and must withstand seismic shocks which measure up to 5 and 6 on the Richter scale. With the new production plant, Xiashun is in a position to manufacture litho material of the highest quality.

The aluminium foil of the Chinese manufacturer Xiamen Xiashun Aluminium Foil is indeed ultra thin; each coil, however, weighs approximately 17 tons. The company produces foil in a strength of less than six thousandth of a millimetre, which is used in the manufacture of condensers, in the area of medicine and for packaging in the foodstuffs industry. In the port city of Xiamen, approximately 500 kilometres east of Hong Kong, Xiashun is building one of the most modern aluminium rolling mills in Asia, involving the entire process chain from the aluminium melting to the finished product. The intralogistics and materials handling technology for this are coming from Weinsberg in Germany. Vollert is providing assistance in the form of a tunnel shuttle and various coil transport vehicles for the fully automated cross-linking of the different roller mill areas and for a smooth material flow during the 24-hour production, seven days a week. The roller mills will be loaded by four fully automated Vollert coil manipulators.

The heart of the plant constitutes a 160 metre long, 10 metre wide and 27 metre high high-bay warehouse for 800 aluminium coils. The hopper-style warehouse with cladding serves simultaneously as interim and final depot and has eight production entrances and exits above and below ground. Two Vollert storage-retrieval systems store and retrieve the approximately 17-ton heavy and up to 150 degrees Celsius hot aluminium coils. Alone, the steel construction of the high-bay warehouse weighs approximately 1,200 tons. At full capacity, the construction weighs a total of 15,000 tons. As the building is located in an earthquake zone, it must, however, survive unscathed shocks of strength 5 and 6 on the Richter scale. Around the world, there are approximately 800 such earthquakes each year - the demands on the structural system are therefore enormous. In the cross axis, the building will cope with movements of almost 10 centimetres. Also, the storage-retrieval systems cannot be disturbed by oscillations during the movement and loading of the coils. Working closely with the Chinese State Institute responsible, Vollert is therefore taking on, in addition to the supply of the control system and the warehouse administration system, the planning and structural system of the high-bay warehouse. A team of heavy lifting specialists from Weinsberg will later oversee the production and assembly of the entire plant on-site.

"Collaborating with our Chinese partners, we are benefiting from our year-long experience with projects in China", explains Dieter Schäfer, Vollert's Project Manager responsible. "What is new, however, is that we received the contract directly from a Chinese customer." A decisive factor was Vollert's vast expertise in the area of intralogistics for aluminium coils. Just as crucial for the Chinese client is, however, that the production will be carried out in Germany and will thus have the guaranteed quality of being "Made in Germany". The start-up of the plant is already planned for November 2009.

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