MechChem Africa June 2019

⎪ Products and industry news ⎪

LANXESS expands test capacity for high-performance additives

Specialty chemicals company LANXESS has taken a new test bench for additi- vated hydraulic fluids into operation at its Mannheim site. It is being used to test the additive package Additin RC 9200 N, as well as other fluids. These high-performance additives are used to formulate hydraulic fluids that are used in large commercial vehicles such as excava- tors, combine harvesters, or construction vehicles. As the market requires test runs to be performed using various grades of oil, and the test capacity at hydraulic unit manufacturer Bosch Rexroth is only available on a limited basis, the LANXESS Additives (ADD) business unit decided to build its own test bench to conduct these tests. AdditinRC9200Nhadalreadybeen approved by the mechanical engineering company inMarch 2018. All end products that pass the test are published in a list of recommended products for high opera- tional safety. Successfully tested additive packages receive a seal of approval. This means that lubricant manufacturers who use

one of these packages to formulate their hydraulic fluids meet the requirements of the hydraulic unit manufacturer and are listed accordingly – an incen- tive to buy Additin RC 9200 N. Another advantage of Additin RC 9200 N is that it is particularly economical to use as it is dosed at just 0.6% in the mineral base oil. Similar products have a sig- nificantly higher dose of addi- tive ranging from 0.85 to 0.95%. The operational safety of its hydraulic pumps and motors is extremely impor- tant to Bosch Rexroth. Until now, the company had carried out the relevant tests for Additin RC 9200 N itself in ac- cordance with its internal guideline RDE 90235 (Hydraulic fluids based on mineral oils and related hydrocarbons). This is a scientifically standardised test procedure that assesses the behaviour of the lubri- Challenging test procedure for hydraulic fluids

cant and the interaction in the hydraulic pump andmotor under realistic operating conditions. Bosch Rexroth is thus responding to the significantly increased power density of its systems and the equally more strin- gent requirements placed on the lubri- cant. The pump test introduced by Bosch Rexroth in 2015 goes far beyond what current DIN and ISO standards require. www.quality.lanxess.com

Tight space calls for fine crane engineering Grabbing cranes are usually large machines withwide spans and high lifting heights. Not so the Condra grabbing crane installed in February at the railhead serving Sishen Iron Ore Mine, near Kuruman. plications, but the Sishen specification called for a very high degree of operational preci- sion, resulting in the need for low-tolerance engineering of the crane clamshell grab so that it can move smoothly in and out of the railway cars.

The crane is the final link in Sishen’s ore spillage recovery chain, using its 0,5 cubic metre clamshell grab to transfer dumps of ore spilled by the conveyor system and subsequently recovered, into railway cars. This feature rich and finely engineered double-girder electric overhead travelling grabbing crane is a relatively small machine withacapacityof 1,5 tons, a spanof just 7,2m and a lifting height of a fairly standard 5,7m. Condra has previously manufactured much bigger grabbing cranes for various ap-

Sishen’s grabbing crane is feature rich, with variable frequency drives incorporated throughout, a radio remote control with optional pendant control, downlights, four red-and-greenproxy lights to indicatemove- ment clearance on the gantry and grab, and a digital scale monitor on the remote control to show the exact grab load on a continuous basis. There is a second, bigger digital scale read-out on the crane itself, to transmit grab

load status at a glance when not reading the remote control. www.condra.co.za Condra grabbing crane working at the railhead serving Sishen Iron Ore Mine, near Kuruman, South Africa.

June 2019 • MechChem Africa ¦ 37