Surface technology for industrial culture

The region between the Rhine and Ruhr rivers is changing. Mining and steel have been replaced by new worlds of work. As one of the largest museums of its kind in the world, the Deutsche Bergbau-Museum Bochum is dedicated to collecting, preserving, investigating, exhibiting and teaching the fascinating heritage of the mining industry. The largest exhibit is the 71 metre high winding tower of the former Dortmund Germania mine. This year, the steel monument to industry was extensively renovated. XERVON provided services in the key scaffolding and surface technology trades for around twelve months.

XERVON Gerüstbau set up scaffolding around the winding tower in the spring. The scaffolding, which comprised a total of 76,300 individual components, was then completely encased in a dust-tight housing surrounding the outside. The tarpaulin around the staircase-shaped enclosure covered 34 scaffolding levels – creating the work site for XERVON Oberflächentechnik specialists. From April until early autumn, they provided the historic winding tower with high-performance corrosion protection, ensuring it will endure for another quarter of a century.

In the first step, the surface specialists used compressed air blasting to remove the existing old coating, including corrosion and adhesions. A total of around 500 tonnes of solid blasting media were used in this step. To avoid bringing too much weight to the site, the blasting material was transported essentially in a circuit: Compressors continuously conveyed the material upwards, where it was sucked out again directly during the blasting process, then fed downwards. The coating experts then sprayed the steel structure with a new, multi-layer coating system including a coloured top coat. Heating and air conditioning units installed in the work areas ensured that the required ambient conditions remained constant.