alki TECHNIK participates in the construction of the Gotthard-Base Tunnel – alkitronic torque wrenches facilitate the activities on site

Company alki TECHNIK GmbH, located in Ingolstadt, provides with its high-quality products a valuable contribution to the completion of the 57 km long tunnel through the Swiss Alps.

The use of the specially developed, patented torque wrenches of the alkitronic product range provides great advantages in terms of performance and efficiency over the conventional impact wrenches used previously in track-laying. The track sleepers are raised automatically and are affixed from below to the rails. At first, two bolts on the sides have to be loosened. Then, by hand, two clamps are placed over the rail base. Finally, bolting is made on both sides, which in the past was done with a standard impact wrench. By using an alkitronic electric torque wrench EFCip 10 with protection art IP54, torque range from 70 to 400 Nm and LED display for pre-selection of 19 tripping torques, per hour 33 m of track can be laid. Time-consuming and cost-intensive processes such as possible re-tightening of the bolts or the final control with a torque wrench are no longer necessary. The electric torque wrench performs all these tasks in one single work step and switches off automatically as soon as the required pre-set torque has been reached.

With correct handling of the torque wrench human errors may practically be excluded. Approx. 1 million screw connections will be made for the complete tunnel construction. By using the torque wrenches of alki TECHNIK not only great time saving is achieved, this equally applies to the high safety standards during the construction of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which will be more than fulfilled.