How Expander® and Superbolt® bolting technologies from Nord-Lock Group extend equipment life

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For more than four decades, Nord-Lock Group’s bolting technologies have supported the mining industry in every corner of the world towards safer, more reliable operations and applications.

Mining is a high-stakes industry with no room for errors. It requires heavy, expensive machinery and skilled operators working in accident-prone environments. Streamlining maintenance, mitigating downtime, and keeping operators safe are non-negotiable top priorities.

The path to safe, productive mining involves ensuring the use of reliable and durable critical components. These are the ones that keep machines running and save valuable time on rebuilds and regular service maintenance.

In the mining industry, our solutions include the Expander^® System pivot pin technology, designed to reduce friction and wear, as well as Superbolt^® kitted solutions that ensure heavy mine haul trucks operate safely under extreme working conditions.

Many believe that all heavy loaded machinery is subject to lug wear over time. Lug wear results from excessive play between the pin and lug, leading to increased vibration, diminished precision, and structural instability, and if left unchecked, can lead to critical failures. The wear is commonly repaired with line boring which is a time consuming and expensive procedure. Though this traditional repair method solves the lug wear, it does not stop it from reoccurring. A typical mining venture spends 35 to 50 percent of its annual operating budget on equipment maintenance and repairs.

However, Lug wear does not need to occur. Expander System, part of Nord-Lock Group, is an award-winning solution with over two million systems installed since 1985. With the Expander System, the play between the pin and lug that is the root cause for the wear is eliminated and the load on the parts are better distributed, and is adaptable for any obstacle, lubrication and application.

“Because welding and line boring are non-existent or limited, the Expander System greatly reduces repair time. Not having to maintain pivot mounts every few thousand hours means our operating costs will be significantly lower.” This is the testimonial given by a maintenance shop lead from a coal mine in Canada.

Oversized sleeves, larger lug bores, large taper on the axle body, and easy and safe sleeve removal features all make the Expander System a fast, easy and predictable solution to install and remove.

Some Benefits of the Expander System:

• COST BENEFITS - Save money on downtime, parts, servicing & labour
• EASIER – No need to weld or line bore
• FASTER – Less alignment, Improved installation & removal times
• SAFER - No lancing, no hot work

Expander System is used for first-fit in new machines or aftermarket as a repair solution during service and starts saving you money from the moment it is installed. The usual recurring maintenance costs associated with traditional pivot replacement are completely eliminated with the Expander System’s permanent solution.

Expander System pivots pins are available for CAT & Komatsu, Hitachi, Liebherr and more!

Improve access, reduce safety risks, and prevent tooling slippage. Our Superbolt technology stops bolt failures and mounting damage.

There are several problems with traditional strut bolting such as limited access for technicians, safety concerns with high-energy tooling, tooling slips due to lack of reaction points and more. However, Superbolt kitted solutions for heavy mine haul trucks deliver all of the benefits you need in a complete, high-quality kit, including:

• SAFE - No high-pressure tooling in confined spaces
• QUICK - Can install in under an hour with simple hand tools
• ACCURATE - More precise than traditional torque tools
• DROP-IN REPLACEMENT - Ready to install out of the box

The strut concept is approved on larger trucks by the OEM, already proving the benefits on the largest and most critical components. This technology is used globally and has had zero bolting failures in 15 years.

Kit content, quantities and tooling are specific to each model and Superbolt provides kits for a wide range of Caterpillar™ and Komatsu™ heavy mine haul trucks.

The Superbolt solution of MJTs, studs and Flexnuts was first installed as an active field test for a mining customer on one of their Caterpillar™ 797s in 2007. The target was to increase the average service life of the bolting by 2.5x — from 800 to 2,000 hours. The Superbolt solution exceeded the target greatly, and since then, the customer has changed the entire fleet to Superbolt, thus improving reliability by securing the strut through its 18,000+ hour life cycle. With a 22.5x improvement in the life cycle, customers are already seeing a reduction in costs. A longer life cycle means more savings!

Superbolt suspension kits were also installed on Komatsu™ 960E and 930E mine haul trucks in central Queensland, Australia. It only took two workers to install the Superbolt suspension kit, using only safe and easy hand-held tools, with low-input torque. Everything was done in under one hour, whereas the customer’s previous method took four to six hours, utilizing three technicians.

There’s no way around it – maintenance is a costly, disruptive, and not least time-consuming process. In modern mining, every minute of lost production results in lost revenue. So, finding ways to keep machines going is crucial. Wherever applications must safely and reliably hold together, Expander System pivot pins and Superbolt kitted solutions support you towards increased productivity.

Web: www.nord-lock.com