Materials Handling
However, this lock-out arrangement only works as long as the nut can hold its integrity. If the nut fails because its thread shears, the brake will close. Unexpected closing of the brake could cause serious injury to engineers and technicians carrying out maintenance; or indeed to anyone within the vicinity of the conveyor system. The Twiflex ‘parked off ’ feature
is different to other solutions in that it actively removes the spring force from the brake while it is powered off, meaning that there is no force acting on the pad and therefore no potential of an unexpected closure when correctly applied. With hydraulic pressure applied, maintenance engineers can unwind an adjusting spindle, which releases the spring pack. When the hydraulic pressure is removed the spring has the freedom to extend without acting on the brake. At this point the spring load and hydraulic pressure are both zero and the brake has no stored energy. The ‘parked off ’ feature has
a number of benefits. First, basic maintenance such as brake pad replacement can be carried out quickly and with a reduced risk of harm from unexpected closure when compared to conventional brake designs. Second, the brake pressure can easily be adjusted by setting the brake to ‘parked off ’ and adjusting the number of shims from the end cover. Finally, installation is made easier and the brake can be installed without the need for hydraulic pressure.
The ‘parked off ’ feature is available on many of Twiflex’s conveyor brakes, including the recently released VKSD and VBS modular brakes. Further, the Twiflex engineering teams represent a leading repository of expertise and experience, and can work with conveyor users to develop highly bespoke and optimised brake and safety systems.
heavily laden conveyor can have an enormous amount of potential energy, so has to be treated with the utmost respect if accidents are to be avoided.
A
In such cases, considerable time and effort is given to electronically collecting actual usage data and analysing it to ensure that all possible operational scenarios are considered during the design process. n
The brake pressure can easily be adjusted by adjusting the number of shims from the end cover.
The ‘parked off’ feature is available on many of Twiflex’s conveyor brakes including the recently released VKSD and VBS modular brakes.
Steve Powell is product manager for Twiflex, based in Twickenham, UK.
www.twiflex.com
www.engineerlive.com 39
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