Bigger locks waste less water

Thanks to the opening of the extended Panama Canal on the weekend, much bigger cruise-and container ships can now pass through the waterway between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Even though the locks are significantly bigger, than the locks that were used up to now, less fresh water is wasted for every lock operation. Three water-saving basins are assigned to every lock chamber which reclaim 60 percent of the injected water for the next process.

Hydraulic cylinders from Bosch Rexroth also regulate the water supply of chambers and water-saving basins via closures of the communication pipes. A total of 158 hydraulic units were partially simultaneously brought into service on the Atlantic- and Pacific coast by specialists of Bosch Rexroth. For this project the drive- and control manufacturer combined know-how and production capacities from China, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea and USA.

Copyright Image: Bosch Rexroth AG