Welcome to our first Q&A segment! This month we have Darren Grant joining us, Reliance Hexham's Sales and Marketing Manager to answer your questions. To watch the full video follow the link below! If you would like to skip to a section in particular, there is a full breakdown of the questions asked below.
Are we still the Australian agent for Technogrid?
Yes, we have been the Australian agent for Technogrid for around 10 Years!
We recently agreed on terms again to Represent Technogrid in Australia and have some projects we would like to follow up and develop utilising the Technogrid system. For those that are not sure what Technogrid is, it is a energy absorption system that is fully engineered and can be utilised to absorb a falling weight such as a counterweight or a moving object like a mine vehicle in a controlled manner. An engineered Technogrid solution can pull the object up in a calculated distance but we can also minimise the G forces sustained if human life is also travelling in the mass. To get a better understanding of Technogrid click here...
What is the correct way to crack test fork attachments?
There are thousands of fork attachments, but mostly all attachments involved using the fork tines so for the purposes of this question we will focus on the tines. To AS1171 “Non-destructive magnetic particle testing”. In section 3 “Methods of test” 3.2 talks about “preparation of test surfaces”. It states that all areas SHALL be free from any foreign matter, which could interfere with the interpretation of the test results. For example, scale, dirt, grease lose or flacking paint. For best results, we recommend grit blasting before testing but also removing paint and grease with grinders or just whipping grease and cleaning with a solvent is also a good cleaning process.
From experience the most common cracks detected in fork tines are the top hook mounts and usually underneath the hook, so the first step is the to test thoroughly you must remove the fork tine from the carriage to test underneath the top hook mounts. The heel is a location that requires thorough attention and commonly indications are detected transverse to the bottom-locating hook. The heat-affected zone near the weld and the toe of the weld are areas that an indication can appear and propagate through the tine. In some cases the indication can be there un-detected for some time before ultimate failure causes the tine to snap in half in line with the bottom retaining hook. The blade is also an area to concentrate on but the best advice I can give is to use a non-destructive technician with extensive knowledge of fork tines and materials handling equipment as it is just as important to check the tine heel area, heel angle and retaining hooks for wear as these factors all contribute to the performance of fork tines.
I have a 1440mm rope sheave I require fabricating, is this something you can do?
This is certainly something that we can do at Reliance Hexham!
We have supplied sheave wheels up to 3.6m in diameter. Typically, when it comes to sheave wheels’ customers come to us wanting a new sheave wheel urgently and we will always try to complete a project like this as quickly as possibly. As you can appreciate, a sheave wheel can take some time to manufacture. In my 23 years in this industry a fairly common situation is that a deflection sheave that is vital to a mine staying in production is not flagged as critical and a spare is not on location, so delivery is critical. My advice would be to consider even a deflection sheave as a critical spare as the manufacture of in the case of this question, 1.4m would be somewhere in the vicinity of 6-8 weeks which could equate to millions in lost time production.
That concludes this months Q&A Segment. Thank you to everyone who sent in their questions!
Due to the large amount of questions sent in, we have decided to continue this segment so please keep those questions coming in to darreng@reliancehexham.com.au. You can also head to our website to use our “live chat” forum where we would be happy to answer your question immediately.
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