Feature 5 | GERMANY
Vulkan Couplings introduces ACOTEC compound
German marine couplings specialist Vulkan Couplings has redefined the limits for highly flexible couplings with its Advanced Compound Technology – ACOTEC.
ABOVE and RIGHT Figure 1: Vulcameter measurement results for further development and quality monitoring (Credit: Vulkan Couplings).
reliability in ships on all the seas in the world, ACOTEC ensures that they meet the users’ most stringent requirements. Te testing and measuring methodology is of great importance to the meeting of quality requirements, as some of the following examples illustrate. Vulkan Couplings’ ACOTEC is described
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by the company as ‘an integrated approach to the optimisation of all of the relevant influencing factors, in order to be able to offer the best possible products and services’. What is special about ACOTEC is that Vulkan Couplings brings together all competences in-house, from application technology and the torsional vibration calculation (TVC), to construction and development, elastomer and vulcanisation technology, through to the test centre condition monitoring and servicing. Vulcanisation in layman’s terms is the chemical process for converting rubber or related polymers into more durable
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efore highly flexible couplings leave the manufacturing plant to perform their functions with
materials via the addition of sulphur. Tis is a process used for creating flexible couplings for the marine market. In the area of proprietary vulcanisation,
Vulkan Couplings relies on specialist testing methods. For example, without the use of the dynamic vulcameter in accordance with DIN 53529 (Figure 1), a targeted development of the new elastomer compound and a monitoring of the consistently high elastomer quality is not possible. Using the vulcameter, the behaviour of a vulcanisable elastomer compound is examined during vulcanisation. To this end, temperature and pressure are recorded for a defined quantity of an unvulcanised compound in a divided metal chamber. While the lower part of the chamber performs oscillating rotational movements of defined angular amplitude and frequency, the reaction torque is measured in the upper part of the chamber, which changes during the vulcanisation process. An individual obtains measurements for
the viscose and elastic rotational torque, the chamber temperature and the phase angle as a function of time, which are all characteristics for a particular compound (Figure 1). The vulcanisation of the elastic
elements, the main part of each ACOTEC coupling, occurs on transfer moulding presses with the latest systems engineering, in order to be able to guarantee maximum process reliability during the production run. Te optimum process parameters are determined systematically, whereby the results of pressure and temperature measurements in the vulcanisation mould are related to results from filling simulations, filling trials and service-life tests (Figure 2). Te corresponding measurements are then monitored and documented during the production run. The most important criterion for the
approval of the new ACOTEC rubber compound and also each new ACOTEC coupling is the passing of the dynamic
Ship & Boat International July/August 2010
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