THERMOPLASTIC engineering specialist Dotmar EPP is throwing out a challenge to metals traditionally used in materials handling applications including cranes, draglines and minerals and materials processing applications.
It is offering high performance engineering plastics that don’t corrode and never need lubrication as an alternative to phosphor bronze, stainless steel and other metals in applications where metals have been incumbent for decades.
Dotmar EPP engineering director Bruce Armstrong says the advantages of super plastics such as the Ertalon and Nylatron families include low wear characteristics, light weight, low friction, low inertia and long operational life.
“The Ertalon and Nylatron families of plastics are displacing costlier counterparts in grimy environments where reliability is at a premium, a smooth flow of material is essential, and downtime is an enormous liability,” Armstrong says.
Members of the Ertalon and Nylatron families have been successfully employed as bearings and bushes in cranes, forklifts, rolling stock, earthmoving equipment and processing machinery. They have also been used as wear pads on side guides, rollers, conveyors, presses and telescopic booms; gears on winders, lifts, escalators and processing equipment drives; pulleys and sheaves for overhead cables; and rollers for electric hoists, conveyor components, boring and bolting equipment, and heavy duty sections on draglines.
Ertalon and Nylatron
Polyamide Ertalon’s scope is virtually endless because each application’s requirement can almost always be facilitated by subtle variations in physical properties afforded by a different molecular chain structure in each grade of the product.
The range of Ertalon polyamide (commonly recognised as nylon) stock shapes can be engineered to suit applications requiring high mechanical strength, stiffness hardness and toughness, fatigue resistance, high mechanical damping ability, good sliding properties, noise damping, electrical insulating, dielectric properties and excellent wear resistance.
The complementary family of Nylatron thermoplastics can be similarly formulated for outstanding performance characteristics suiting different applications, such as wear resistance and fine motion control in the construction, production and processing equipment industries.
Nylatron703 XL, for example, features ‘Zero Slip-Stick’ performance for precise and efficient motion control of machinery components including wear pads, bearing blocks, wear guides and linear bearings.
Machinery equipped with Nylatron 703XL can accurately produce the smaller movements made possible by today’s sophisticated control devices. Telescoping or sliding parts — such as those in cranes and materials handling equipment — move smoothly over pads made from Nylatron 703XL, without sticking or jumping.
Operators of cranes and other lifting and elevating equipment are drawing on the user friendly properties of sheaves made from Nylatron GSM, according to Armstrong.
“Wear and tear of wire rope has always been such a problem with sheaves made of cast iron, SG iron, aluminium, and fabricated mild steel, that operators are turning to towards Nylatron GSM,” Armstrong says.
Lubricity of Nylatron GSM is kept at an optimum level by finely divided particles of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) solid lubricant which impregnates the high-strength cast nylon. Casting to configuration can be done in a wide range of sizes with minimal machining, ensuring the material stays price competitive with cast and forged steel sheaves.
Apart from cranes and lifting equipment, Nylatron GSM has been used in industries including shipping, automotive, military, mining and resources, chemical, building and construction, railway, agriculture, and engineering.
“The advantages of engineering plastics in many applications are so compelling that the only reason metals are used is old habit,” Armstrong says.
www.dotmar.com.au
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