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THE CHALLENGE:
The running surfaces of the Towveyor® track at a busy materials handling
facility in the Pacific Northwest had been badly damaged by continuous wear and
impact from around the clock traffic of heavily loaded trolleys. The original
iron particle/cementitious track material had failed badly and repairs had to be
made quickly to make the track safe and quiet again. Failure was primarily by
deep rutting and loss of the wear surface which resulted in shortened equipment
life and serious ambient noise issues from the clattering trolleys.
THE SOLUTION:
BIO-DECK 190 was specially developed by TFT Epoxies (UK) to have extreme abrasion resistance
(4.4mgs loss/1,000 cycles/1,000 gr./CS17 wheels), while exhibiting extremely
quick cure to allow return to service within 4 hours at 75’F and having NO odour
or hazards to plant personnel. Once the failed iron/cementitious material had
been removed using manual and power chisels the application of BIO-DECK 190
track material was easily accomplished using a simple screed box and
conventional mixing equipment. During lab development the viscosity of the
BIO-DECK 190 mixture was adjusted to provide slight leveling after screeding
into the Towveyor wear channel – this yielded an extremely smooth and quiet
rolling surface for a particularly long service life.
The application crew came to the job with epoxy coating
experience and learned to install the 10” wide by ¼” deep BIO-DECK 190 track
during the first few hours of the project. Production rate and finished track
quality were completely acceptable within hours of starting the project.
RESULT:
The photograph above shows the track after eight (8) years of continuous
service. Examination showed the track to be in 100% intact condition with no
perceptible additional wear in the year since the last inspection. As the
surface has worn it has become velvet smooth and even more dense suggesting that
the rate of wear will steadily decrease to an absolute minimum level with its
ultimate service life in excess of 20 years.
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Parts of the mechanical track system had been modified about
three years ago. In these repair areas the old iron/cementitious wear surface
had been reinstalled – this can be seen as the damaged and potholed track
surface on the right hand side of the track in the photo above. Note the smooth
and intact condition of the BIO-DECK 190 compared to the severely damaged and
much more recent iron/cementitious surface immediately adjacent to it. Reports
from the site indicated that the iron/cementitious surface is continuing to
degrade becoming noisier and causing items to fall from Towveyor® carts.
From
every appearance the BIO-DECK 190 surface will continue to provide outstanding
service for many years to come. Compared to the old iron/cementitious wear
surface BIO-DECK 190 offers advantages of not only economy and a far speedier
return of valuable plant to service but increased safety, efficiency and noise
reduction.
For more information on this system contact:
Bill Pavitt
Maintenance Systems and Solutions
15613 S.E. 42nd Place
Bellevue, WA 98006 USA(425) 562-6076
bill.pavitt@attbi.com
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