Eastern Switzerland has another tourist attraction to offer: a revolving restaurant has opened to offer visitors a panoramic view of the fascinating mountain landscape at a height of 1,795 m on the “Hoher Kasten” mountain in the Appenzell region. The special feature: a turning element in the floor enables the restaurant area to rotate once per hour. The drive systems required to make this happen – from the wheels to the frequency inverter – is "made by Demag".
A cable car is used to reach the “Hoher Kasten” revolving restaurant, in which LBHK Luftseilbahn Brülisau-Hoher Kasten AG invested some 9.6 million Swiss Francs. The trip from Brülisau to the mountain viewpoint takes almost 8 minutes. The idea to install a revolving disc in the floor was developed by the Swiss architects "architekten:rlc ag", based in Rheineck. Their overall concept won an architecture competition. Demag Cranes & Components supplied the drives for the application.
The turntable, which consists of circular crane rails and a metal frame with a wooden floor mounted on top, measures 14.5 m in diameter. The structure is supported by 24 wheel blocks in size DRS 200 that are arranged in a circle and bolted to the concrete floor. Six DRS 112 wheel blocks serve as side guide rollers.
The area inside the ring does not move. This is used to accommodate the open buffet of the panorama restaurant. The entire system revolves around this core element.
The design principle of the Demag drive system already ensures that only a minimum of noise is generated in normal operation. Additional foam panels were installed as sound insulation and long-term graphite lubrication was applied to all of the drive elements. Foil separates the wood from the steel. The narrow gap between the outside and inside circles as closed with brush seals.
The turntable is driven by six double offset gearboxes with brake motors, which are specifically rated for the very low speeds required for this application. The patented torque bracket of the offset gearboxes enables the torque to be transmitted from the geared motor to the wheel block without any radial force. This reduces the load on the drive shaft and extends its service life.
The six drive motors are centrally controlled by a Demag Dedrive Compact frequency inverter, which results in very low operating noise at a modulation frequency of 16 kHz and provides for infinitely variable speeds.
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