Friday 1 January 2016

Guides To Follow While Buying Heavy Duty Casters

By Edward Jackson


A caster is a simple wheel mounted on a fork so that the axis of the wheel rotation offsets slightly in relation to the mounting. The simple engineering concept helps the wheel to always be behind the shaft in respect to the direction of movement. Due to this ability to rotate or swivel around, it is possible to turn an object around its axis thus can be useful in cluttered spaces. The heavy duty casters have found their applications in the transport carts, aerospace building, ship and heavy industries too.

Material used in the construction dictate the properties of the caster itself. If the strong and durable materials are used, a caster that has been engineered well would bare similar strength and durability. Therefore, it is important to get the casters made by the strongest and durable materials since they tend to offer the same when working with.

When buying a caster, one should consider whether to get a swiveling or rigid one. Each has its merit and demerits. Rigid caster machines are more like to carry more weight since they do not have many joint and are safer in controlling them. The swiveling casters are more applicable in areas wheel there need to be lots of movements since they can turn at one place without taking much of a space.

Caster wheel wobbling is an effect caused from rapid side to side movement of the wheel during movement. It usually occurs at specific speeds and each caster wheel has its critical speed to which is starts to wobble. The wobble can also be referred as fluttering another contributing factor to the fluttering is the weight borne by the caster wheels. The heavier the load, the less the fluttering since it helps in stabilizing the wheels.

Long time operations and use of caster driven cars or carts can cause injurious effects to the user. Therefore, better research on improvement and enhancement has been one of the projects for the design engineers. This includes the improvement on caster wheel tires and padding, getting the best length of trailing offset to avoid fluttering, brakes and steering system to ease control. All these improvements are aimed to make the casters more efficient and effective in their applications.

The caster wheel size; diameter, width and tandems affects their efficiency and working. A wider width caster wheel has more load capacity since it can distribute the weight over a larger surface area than a narrow wheel. A bigger wheel diameter proves to be much better to use in the rough and irregular surfaces since it can be able to bridge easily over than smaller wheels.

The working conditions of a caster put to a limit and restriction of certain material and their service time. Exposure to chemicals and liquids calls for a caster that is inert and can work in such harsh conditions, more loading calls for more strong casters. Also the amount work dictates that the caster be of durable material in order to service the purpose.

Lastly, when purchasing the caster, one should understand his or her requirements based on the type if surface or rail he is going to use. Flat surfaces call for flat padded or tired casters so as to reduce vibration and floor damage. For the rails, u- shaped, v-shaped and tapered are more preferred since they provide grip on the rail thus avoiding derailing.




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