News Releases

January 2007

In one simple stroke, Firestone wipes out conveyor lubrication and maintenance worries

A weakness of conveyor systems operating in grimy and aggressive environments can be the need to constantly lubricate and protect the actuators used for high repetition tasks.

Key areas of concern include actuators for lift gates, drive tables, transfer sections, belt tensioners, belt centering guides, waste scrapers and friction brakes - all areas that can be exposed to grime, debris and waste that can disrupt the seals and shafts of convention pneumatic and hydraulic cylinders.

"Because conveyor breakdowns can compromise safety and cost production, process engineers are forever on the lookout for ways to make conveyor actuation simpler and more reliable," says Simon Agar, Sales Manager for national actuation and isolation specialist Air Springs Supply Pty Ltd

"Working on the reasoning that fewer moving parts are better, one excellent solution for simplicity and reliability can be to employ Airstroke® actuators without seals, shafts or internal moving parts," says Mr Agar, who has more than 15 years' experience engineering actuation solutions using the Firestone Airstroke range of actuators from Air Springs Supply.

These enormously tough rubber and fabric actuators are, in effect, balloons or bellows engineered to particular shapes for particular tasks. They are rapidly inflated and deflated to provide the actuation and retraction required by modern high-speed conveyors employed in heavyweight industries ranging from mining, materials handling, waste water and minerals processing through to more delicate tasks in the food, chemicals and manufacturing areas.

Supplying actuation forces from a few dozen kilograms up to 40,000 kg a unit, Airstroke's single, double and triple-convoluted and rolling sleeve designs are made exactly the same way as the air springs used as suspension springs in heavy vehicles such as semi-trailers. The compact but powerful actuators are every bit as tough as the Airmount® isolators found under giant semi-trailers hauling coal, minerals and heavy grimy loads day after day, year after year, says Mr Agar.

The Airstroke range available throughout Australia is currently being expanded by Air Springs Supply from the largest (one metre diameter) models down to palm-sized Airomatic mini actuators for delicate jobs requiring a clean actuator that doesn't need lubrication and can cope effortlessly with high-repetition tasks. Eliminating lubrication eliminates another sticky surface for waste adherence.

"One of the beauties of this form of actuation is the inherent flexibility of the actuators when they meet their working surface," says Simon Agar. "Being made of rubber and not having any rods or seals to damage, they allow maintenance-free defelction on a continuously basis. Their flexibility also makes them ideal for applications such as belt takeups or roller friction applications, where they may be applied against an oscillating surface," says Mr Agar.

"They can also stroke through a radius without a clevis, thus eliminating both complexity and cost when you need to actuate through an angle. Their ability to soak up shock without damage while delivering high-repetition strokes means they are highly applicable to conveyor transfer, gate and lift sections."

Air Springs Supply's growing Airstroke range offers actuation strokes ranging from 12.5mm for the tiny (16mm high deflated) Airomatics, through to more than 300mm for triple-convoluted models used as both actuators and isolators in heavy industry. Current Australian uses, for example, ranging from lifting for splitting of giant mining shovels for maintenance, through to counter-pressure devices on hydraulic stamping presses of more than 100 tonnes capacity.

"We don't say Airstrokes are the ideal solution for all actuation needs, because every professional knows that each case needs to be considered on its own special needs. But we do know from a generation of experience that they can save a lot of time and money over a vast range of applications, because we have installations that have completed millions upon millions of cycles with outstanding reliability," says Mr Agar. "If safety, reliability, flexibility and repetition are engineering issues, then they can be extremely viable and economic alternatives," he says.

For more information about Air Springs Supply's national distribution and technical support network, please contact Air Springs Supply Pty Ltd, 10 Angas St, Meadowbank, Sydney 2114, ph (02) 9807 4077, fax (02) 9807 6979, sales@airsprings.com.au