Mounting Anxiety..Try KTRs MONOLASTIC® Coupling

A few years ago KTR introduced MONOLASTIC®, a single-piece flexible coupling designed for diesel engine and hydraulic pump drives. The coupling, which is made from natural rubber, has a steel hub with a hardened internal spline already assembled by the manufacturer to allow an axial plug-in in combination with the pump shaft. The MONOLASTIC® coupling is ideal for applications where excessive noise and misalignment are concerns and is available for all pump shafts according to SAE and DIN. The coupling is suitable for drives in smaller construction machines such as mini excavators, vibratory rollers, wheel loaders and compact loaders, as well as for land tractors, agricultural machines, forklifts, street cleansing vehicles with hydrostatical drives. Due to their compact design MONOLASTIC® couplings is ideal for diesel-driven vehicles such as construction machinery and tractors. This enables manufacturers to produce compact drive solutions for their vehicles. Like all KTR couplings, the MONOLASTIC® units are designed to dampen torsional vibrations in the drive system and compensate for shaft misalignments. The abrupt starting of the fan on diesel-driven vehicles where the drive is directly connected with the crankshaft can lead to failures. When the fan starts along the primary drive, this can cause vibrations which can tear off screws and holding devices that may damage the adjacent cooler. This damage results in expensive repairs which have already caused some manufacturers to think about separate hydrostatic fan drives. The easier solution would be to use the flexible MONOLASTIC® flange coupling. In this application, the coupling is mounted directly onto the crankshaft with a flange, so the power flows from the engine to the fan shaft via the coupling. The fan is supported by a slide bearing inside the coupling and begins rotating in a damped way to prevent the starting shock, so that the load on the fan screw connection is reduced. This drive system represents a compact and low-cost solution, as the coupling can be easily assembled. Recently, following international customer demand, the MONOLASTIC® range was extended to facilitate higher power. The MONOLASTIC® 65 was introduced for 10” and 11½” SAE flywheel dimensions. Since adding this size to the range, KTR are now in a position to offer MONOLASTIC® couplings for all SAE dimensions. As with every MONOLASTIC® coupling, the hydraulic pump is pushed axially into the internal spline after assembly of the coupling, and as usual, the hydraulic pump has to be centred to the engine unit either by means of a pump mounting plate or housing. The benefits of this new type of coupling include: • Shorter assembly time due to the single-piece coupling design • Since only one component is assembled it is not necessary to mount the hub onto the pump shaft, reducing errors in assembly • Torque shocks in the drive train are considerably reduced due to the torsionally flexible torque transmission • Balancing of radial misalignment with very low restoring forces The MONOLASTIC® can be used in fan drives of engines with a performance of 250kW, with a choice of different elastomer hardness. With the help of computer-aided simulation and calculation programmes, KTR’s engineers can determine the coupling required. KTR also manufactures torsional flexible couplings for larger mobile applications such as pumps, generators and splitter box drives used on harvesting and road machines. For more information about the KTR product range, please contact us.

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