There is a vital part of production in the heavy machine industry that is often overlooked.

Workholding.

Positioning, supporting, and clamping are critical steps in workholding. However, when it comes to clamping, hydraulic clamps are the superior choice.

Hydraulic clamps have many advantages. They produce accurate and repeatable processes while using less space. As a result, they save time and money.

Does your industry use hydraulic clamps? Read on to learn four essential uses of hydraulic clamps in a variety of industries.

1. Industrial Mobile Hydraulics

Industrial uses of hydraulics extend beyond plant processing machinery and automated production lines.

In industrial mobile hydraulics, an operator manually controls the hydraulic system. Building and construction equipment often contain hydraulics. Example vehicles include tractors, backhoes, excavators, and cranes.

Excavators are an excellent opportunity to see hydraulic clamps in action.

Wheeler and crawler excavators use hydraulic clamps. Heavy machinery operators use the clamps to remove unwanted debris or place materials.

Clamps keep the material secure for loading and handling.

2. Hydraulic Drilling Rigs

Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most advanced mining technologies today.

Drilling uses hydraulics to extract unused gas and oil from the Earth’s surface. It pushes a high-pressure mixture of water, sand, and chemical additives through cracks in the earth. This forces the resources out.

These applications, and many others, benefit from hydraulic pipe clamps. A hydraulic pipe clamp is a convenient way of fastening a tube, pipe, and hose to a fixed point.

These hydraulic clamps reduce system noise, vibration, and damage caused by flex fatigue. Thus, they are vital for long-term safety and performance.

3. Maritime Technology

Hydraulic clamps play an essential role in marine applications. They are essential to maintain control and stability of leisure and commercial vessels.

Many ship parts use hydraulic systems.

Steering gears, bow and stern thrusters, and engine rooms contain hydraulic parts. In addition, maintenance systems such as pumps, jacks, and deck machines also use hydraulic systems.

One interesting use of hydraulic clamps is boat leveling systems.

Boat levelers correct listing in certain sea conditions. These systems use hydraulics for smooth trimming actions. Hydraulic hose clamps are vital to the proper function of leveling systems.

4. Aerospace Industry

Aerospace applications such as planes, rockets, and spaceships also use hydraulic systems.

Hydraulics, including clamps, are active in steering and braking. They are also used to adjust wing retraction or landing gear and open or close doors.

The aerospace industry faces unique conditions. Therefore, when choosing materials, you must consider many variables. These include extreme temperatures, high-frequency vibrations, and harsh chemical usage.

Hydraulic hose clamps are critical in these conditions. They maintain stability, safety, and proper function.

Choose the Right Hydraulic Clamps For Your Needs

Hydraulic systems have many uses across several heavy machine industries. So it’s easy to see that hydraulic clamps are vital tools.

To achieve safe and consistent workholding, hydraulic clamps are a great option. They can help you save time, money, and space while producing reliable results. 

Need help choosing the right hydraulic clamp for your needs?

Kor-Pak is here to help. Please browse our products or contact us today.

Gearboxes are the unsung heroes of power transmission. They take the motor output and change speed, torque, and direction to what’s needed to drive essential equipment. Conveyor systems, pumps, mixers, and a host of other machinery rely on gearboxes for their operation.

When a gearbox fails, the equipment or process being driven stops. That unplanned downtime translates to lost production, late deliveries, and increased costs.

An excellent way to avoid problems like these is by carrying out regular inspections. They don’t need to take long; you just need to know what to look for. Here are seven signs that your gearbox needs attention.

1. Oil Leaking from Shaft Seals

Gearbox oil lubricates and cools. If it’s leaking, the level will be low, which leads to other problems. (See below.) Oil leaks usually appear as dark streaks or tearstains in the paint directly below where shafts exit the gearbox housing.

2. Running Abnormally Hot

Heat causes expansion — that takes up clearances and leads to more wear. A simple check is to place a hand on the housing. To get more sophisticated, use a handheld IR thermometer or even a thermal camera. If you see smoke or the paint is becoming discolored, you’ve got a severe overheating problem.

3. Unusual Noise and/or Vibration

These go hand-in-hand, but in noisy environments, it’s hard to pick up abnormal sounds. Vibration, however, will tell you if something is going wrong. So, again, a hand check is good, but the instrumentation is better. You might even want to install vibration monitoring equipment on critical pieces of the plant.

4. Low Oil Level

If the manufacturer put a sight glass on the housing, it’s there for a reason. Make sure you can see oil at the correct level. If not, plan on topping it up as soon as possible.

5. Low Oil Pressure

Hard to tell without a pressure gauge, but low oil pressure suggests the pump is failing. If the gauge is reading low, plan on making repairs soon.

6. Damaged Gear Teeth

Take a cover off and check the condition of the teeth. If necessary, get hold of an endoscope for a close-up examination. Spalling or other signs of wear suggest alignment, bearing, or temperature problems. If one or more teeth are missing, it might be that the gearbox is being overloaded. Schedule repair or replacement as soon as possible.

7. Blocked Breathers

Breathers let air move in and out of the gearbox housing. If they get blocked, this airflow stops. It could lead to raised temperatures, and it may also mean the gearbox has ingested particulates from the air. Clean the breather and change the oil!

A common challenge with monitoring gearboxes is, can you be sure something has changed? It’s good practice to take pictures and make notes on every inspection. You might even video it running. This way, if you suspect a problem, you can check whether you see something new or just normal operation.

What To Do If You See Problems?

We’re specialists in industrial gearboxes and power transmission products. Contact Us for all your spares, servicing, and replacement equipment needs.

The range of applications offered by modern farm equipment comes with a similarly broad library of parts and maintenance options. Sustaining a base of current knowledge around your agricultural tools is beneficial whether you’re running a newer, small-time operation or scaling up efficiency as a veteran in the farming industry. 

Keeping up with the ins and outs of your agricultural equipment while successfully managing a budget is easier said than done. Balancing parts selection with the cost of maintenance – around an increasingly complex supply chain environment – means every investment in machinery needs to be thoroughly understood and optimized. 

Kor-Pak supplies a comprehensive range of agricultural equipment and tooling components. Here, we’ll be taking a look at five agricultural machinery considerations to best support your farming operation.

Friction

When we think about the efficiency of a machine, we often look at the bigger pieces of the puzzle: the wheels, engines, rotors, bands, and processing systems (blades, fans, etc.). However, the effectiveness of these larger structures is owed to a long list of slightly more invisible properties. Among such internal qualities, friction is a front-runner. 

The friction coefficient of any material you implement in your agricultural equipment can impact the overall productivity of your operation. If your machines are not equipped with the proper friction materials for the soil, agricultural category, or climate, they will be susceptible to increased wear and tear. 

PTO (Power Take-Off) Facings

Power take-off systems channel energy from an engine to another component in the machine system. For example, kinetic/rotating power can be converted into hydraulic power for a pump – negating the need for a standalone hydraulic engine. 

In choosing a PTO and its associated facings, operators should know their applications’ specific horsepower and torque requirements. Speed, sizing, and frictional elements can contribute to problems of excessive heating and component slipping. 

Phenolic Bushings

Bushings are single-element bearings intended to modulate the efficiency of moving parts (like shafts and fans). Phenolic materials have taken precedence among high-load applications for their unique self-lubricating properties and resistance to heat-conduction into other parts of the system. Further, they contribute to structural stability in the equipment and can be engineered for extreme resilience under high heat conditions and exposure to acid. 

Phenolic bushings provide a highly efficient, low-maintenance option that is well-suited for agricultural equipment.

Brake Bands

The relationship between friction and function and its importance to optimal machine operation is established – and your brake systems are no different. During use, brake bands will accumulate tremendous amounts of heat. As a result, improperly specced or unmaintained material may experience a condition referred to as “fading.” Fading is the rapid deterioration of a material’s friction coefficient resulting from excess heat build-up. 

Cost and Maintenance

Agricultural equipment maintenance is a significant component of the overall operational costs inherent to any farming operation. Making well-informed decisions on your materials can contribute to saving as much as $50 an acre.

Kor-Pak is here to help. Contact our team for guidance and consultation on selecting the best agricultural materials for your equipment, and we’ll get you on your way.

Applications around the world and in many industries use mechanisms to operate machinery. From harvesting crops and processing food to mining precious ores from the earth, these machines use rotating systems to operate, such as tracks on an excavator or a tractor equipped with a brush hog attachment used to clear a field.

Depending on the machine, the amount of generated torque can be vast depending on the equipment and the task. Therefore, these mechanisms are designed to handle a specific amount of generated torque consistently. However, some unforeseen circumstances may cause the mechanisms to experience higher torque loads that exceed design specifications. In these instances, a torque limiter is used to prevent the machine from overloading.

What is a Torque Limiter?

A torque limiter is a device that limits the amount of torque that mechanisms will experience. It is a device placed somewhere between the drive and the system that is driven. The torque limiter engages when the machine experiences a high torque load that the system cannot handle. 

The torque limiter disconnects (slips) the drive from the driven system. Due to this decoupling, the torque force begins to dissipate as the machine falls back into normal torque load thresholds or completely shuts down. For some torque limiter designs, the device still allows the equipment to function at lower speeds as engineers diagnose the issue to get the equipment running back at total capacity. For other instances, the torque limiter must be manually reset to reengage the drive system. 

There are many types of torque limiter designs. Some standard devices include the following:

• Shear pin
• Friction torque limiters
• Ball detent torque limiters
• Magnetic torque limiters
• Hydraulic torque limiters

Why Are Torque Limiters Important?

Torque limiters act as a safety mechanism for equipment. It prevents equipment from experiencing a catastrophic failure that could result in tool breakage or even injuries to workers. The torque limiter is designed to work within milliseconds of detecting high torque loads. As a result, they can prevent damage from gearboxes, shafts, couplings chains, and other mechanisms. 

The location of the torque limiter varies based on which type of equipment it should protect. Multiple torque limiters may be placed between different points along the drive system. You may have a torque limiter between the gearbox and the motor to protect the motor, or the gearbox and the driven system to protect both the motor and the gearbox.

Best practices when deciding on the size and type of torque limiter and its placement will depend on the generated torque load. Typically, the torque load may be placed between mechanisms that are the most expensive to maintain, repair, or replace in the event of a catastrophic failure. In addition, the torque limiter should always be set at a place that generally has a low amount of torque to prevent the device from accidentally tripping on its own. 

When it comes to torque limiters, these devices protect your equipment through their entire lifecycle. As a result, they may prevent unnecessary downtimes, complete equipment failure, and workplace accidents. For more information about torque limiters, contact Kor-Pak.