Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - March 2004
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Revolutionary wheel turns on tourists

By Alan Symes,
LPS Special Correspondent

The Falkirk Wheel in Stirlingshire, Scotland, is turning out to be one of Britain’s most spectacular tourist attractions and has won a string of awards for its innovative design, engineering and environmental features. Linking two Scottish canals with water levels 35 metres apart, it is a dramatic solution to an age-old problem of transferring boats between levels that traditionally required a flight of 11 locks. Photo: British Waterways.

The Falkirk Wheel combines innovative engineering with elegance, and, as the world’s first rotating boat lift, is now a modern icon of progress. Linking two Scottish canals with water levels 35 metres apart, it is an ingenious solution to an age-old problem of transferring boats between levels that traditionally required a flight of 11 locks.

The Falkirk Wheel is the centrepiece of the £84.5 million Millennium Link, the UK’s largest canal restoration project, re-establishing the waterway link from east coast to west coast by reconnecting and regenerating the Forth & Clyde and Union canals.

Since its formal opening by Queen Elizabeth in May 2002, the project has attracted a string of prestigious awards, including the Brunel Medal 2002 granted by the Institution of Civil Engineers; the UK’s Structural Steel Design Award; Best Practice in Regeneration, an accolade from the British Urban Regeneration Association, and Awards for Planning Achievement granted by the Royal Town Planning Institute.

High water: A close-up view behind The Falkirk Wheel, showing a boat in its caisson. Also visible is part of the innovative interconnecting cog design which ensures that the gondolas holding the boats on opposite sides of the wheel remain horizontal.
Photo: British Waterways.
The enterprise was backed by a funding partnership between seven local authorities; the Scottish Enterprise Network; the European Development Fund, and the project manager, British Waterways, which runs UK canals. A major contribution of £32 million came from the Millennium Commission, with an additional £19 million support from Scottish Enterprise and £2.4 million from the private sector.

Although five years of planning and design work went into the initial tender stage for its construction, the Falkirk Wheel’s visually exciting shape and novel conception actually stemmed from three weeks of demanding brainstorming sessions involving a 20- strong multi-disciplinary team of engineers and architects soon after the contractor had been chosen. Participants were reported to have been told to attend the meetings with “only a blank piece of paper and clear heads”.

The original design concept on which earlier tenders were based was that of a 19th century style Ferris wheel which, upon closer examination, was discarded. British Waterways’ desire for alternatives, while still favouring a wheel of some kind, was taken up and a dramatic solution reached. The final outcome was described by the UK’s New Civil Engineer magazine as, “a genuine rare example of design integration between architects, steelwork designers and engineers of several disciplines – civil structural and mechanical.”

The Falkirk Wheel is 30 metres long and its height, identical to its width, is the equivalent of eight stacked double-decker buses. The Wheel, which stands in a 100 metre wide circular basin with moorings for over 20 boats, can lift 600 tonnes (300 tonnes at each end) – the approximate weight of 100 adult African elephants. It covers 45 hectares, the bulk of which occupies the site of an abandoned open-cast mine. The project involved major landscaping and the removal of 300,000 tonnes of soil. A 1,000-strong construction team carried out the work using huge quantities of materials including 7,000 cubic metres of concrete, 1,000 tonnes of reinforced steel, 1,200 tonnes of prefabricated steel and 35,000 square metres of canal lining.

Designed to last for well over a century, the Wheel can carry eight or more boats at a time and a single trip takes about 15 minutes. Visitors to the project can enjoy what is described as a unique canal experience. The journey starts with passengers boarding a specially constructed boat at the Visitor Centre before heading out towards the magnificent Wheel itself. The boat then glides effortlessly into one of the water-filled caissons where the doors close to form a watertight seal.

As visitors enjoy unhindered views of the Orchil Hills in the distance, the Falkirk Wheel starts to rotate, and in one smooth seven-minute movement the vessel rises to the top of the Wheel where it continues its journey along a newly constructed aqueduct and through a 145 metre tunnel underneath the historic Antonine Wall. Passengers get another chance to repeat the experience as the boat embarks on the return journey to the Visitor Centre below.

One of the Wheel’s clever engineering features is a row of five differing size cogs hidden behind the arm nearest the aqueduct. These ensure that the Wheel is perfectly balanced as its axle turns, powered by 10 seven kilowatt geared motors located around it. As the wheel rotates, two small cogs on each arm turn against a stationary larger cog fixed to the aqueduct pier behind the axle. These small cogs also connect with two outer cogs, the same diameter as the central one and located in each arm’s gondola support hole. Outer cogs, and the gondolas rigidly fixed to them, always rotate at the same speed as the turning wheel – effectively keeping the gondolas horizontal.
Contact, Web site: www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk or
E-mail: info@the falkirkwheel.co.uk.

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