Plain Bearings for Root Ball Transplanters

iglide® Application

Application Overview

The spades are pushed slowly into the soil.

Root ball transplanters are indispensable tools for tree nurseries and for garden and landscaping businesses. They gently transplant trees of any size. Hydraulic cylinders are used to slowly, but with immense force, push the spades into the soil, cleanly severing the roots. Maintenance-free polymer plain bearings demonstrate their strengths in all areas that involve rotating and swiveling movements. They are maintenance-free, work under dry-running conditions and are particularly insensitive to dust and dirt.

For nearly ten years, the agricultural engineering company has been relying on iglide® G from igus® GmbH, Cologne. The all-rounder bearing is particularly resistant to external influences. More than 650 dimensions are available from stock.

"And we make full use of this spectrum", states the mechanical engineer, Reiner Irsigler. "There is almost no dimension that we do not use in our broad model range. In addition, the price/performance ratio is also spot-on, which of course makes economic sense."

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Maintenance-free polymer plain bearings are used in the hydraulic spade guides, various hinges and locks and also in the linkage between the primary and pivot arm. This allows us to guarantee low maintenance expenses and longer service intervals to our customers.

Roland Schlesag

Optimal-Vertrieb Opitz GmbH

Plain bearings for rotating and swivel movements
The ideal root ball transplanter will handle trees with considerable care. Their low working height permits trees to be removed without causing damage. The root ball matches the shape of the natural root growth. The favorable spade geometry and clean cut facilitates an accurate shape. The root ball stays intact, as it is fully enclosed by the spade. The low weight of the mounted equipment limits damage to the soil and roots.

Agricultural engineering requirements place particular emphasis on the absence of lubricants and long service life. Root ball transplanters place loads on iglide® G300 plain bearings primarily during swivel movements. In detail, this involves gimbal mounted hydraulic spade cylinders, as well as hinges and locks for the opening and closing frame components. On large machines that are mounted on trucks, plain bearings in the joints also ensure a secure connection of the primary arm with the swivel arm.

The highest loads are placed on the machine elements in the areas of the gimbal mounted spade cylinders when the four spades are steadily pushed into the soil with considerable force. A spade on one of the larger machines can theoretically push down with a force of 15 t. The means that a force of 150,000 N is applied by the hydraulics.

"We have had nothing but the best experience in this area with the plain bearings", states Reiner Irsigler in this regard. "They will hold up to the enormous surface pressures over time. This is in addition to their lack of lubricants, which is proving itself in daily use, whereas the soil permanently bonds to lubricated machine elements. Over time, the soil incrementally penetrates the bushings, creating friction and ultimately resulting in a failure."

Moisture and soil have no influence of any kind on the functionality of the individual machinery components.

The areas where the spades enter into the soil are also subject to any imaginable abrasive loads. Moisture and a broad temperature spectrum are topics that can also not be ignored. "The tree transplanting campaign that took place in the winter of 2011/2012 in the Stuttgart Schlosspark as part of the new rail station construction was subject to a very tight timeline. In addition, the temperatures were in a deep freeze“, Roland Schlesag recalls an actual episode. "None of the machines we used experienced malfunctions of any kind. “ In addition, the tribo-optimized plain bearings are able to handle any edge load without difficulty, for instance when the spades impact rocks.

Polymer plain bearings in the various hinges, locks and hydraulic cylinders of the root ball transplanter.

The root ball transplanter uses tribo-optimized cylindrical standard plain bearings made from iglide® G materials in a host of available dimensions. These are simply ordered from the catalog. The application spectrum is always the same on all machines, allowing the agricultural engineering firm to rely on standard solutions. "It simply works", comments Dirk Lanuschni, the responsible igus® sales consultant. "The iglide® G material is known as an all rounder. It comprises a broad spectrum of possible applications and is characterized by high wear-resistance and low friction values. “

3D rendition of the guide box: a host of applications for polymer plain bearings.

This also includes another engineering detail that plays an important role and underscores the versatility of polymer plain bearings: "At some point the single-sided load will cause a red brass bushing to wear, which impacts tolerances. The clearance continues to increase until a bolt fails. Even though we used to use hardened bolts, for instance in the hinges, they still failed", the mechanical engineer recalls. "Bolt failures are now a thing of the past. The softer plastic material yields elastically, which completely avoids the notch damage that is the starting point for a failure."

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