He pointed out that the workboat industry has, especially over the last few years, steadily broadened its remit, resulting in new tasks and new types of equipment. More, the deck gear is being pushed that much harder: forcing up efficiency subjects it to a wider range of loads with gears and bearings rotating that much faster.<\/p>\n
At the same time new developments mean the familiar, tried and tested products may no longer be the most appropriate, and some even present choices that may seem counterintuitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example the slewing gear of deck cranes have a vertical face. People normally choose a thick asphaltic grease, but this has the tendency just to slide off,\u201d he explained. Kl\u00fcber Lubrication on the other hand has worked on an alternative; this provides a thin layer that despite appearances, stays in place. \u201cIt adds to longevity, and importantly it improves the safety on deck \u2013 a really big factor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another new area of development has centred on the automatic lubrication system for jack-up wind installation vessels: \u201cWe found that a softer grease gave better performance than before and customers are coming back to us saying that after a year, they are getting less wear.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not easy to get the right formulation. \u201cThere are a number of criteria\u201d he explained. It\u2019s not just a matter of withstanding harsh environments, loaded with salt \u2013 although that\u2019s no small part of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to ask, is it needed for rolling or sliding friction?\u201d Both actions require different characteristics he explained: \u201cThey either work to separate the contact points with a film or to deliver additives that, even if the product is squeezed out at the point of contact, will still deliver anti-friction benefits.\u201d Of course some base oils and additives perform better in one area than another he said, and added \u201cthere\u2019s always a balance and one element can actually work against another.\u201d<\/p>\n
On top of all this there\u2019s the temperature: \u201cA grease that\u2019s good for the tropics isn\u2019t the same as one that you can use in the North Sea, and in colder conditions it still has to flow through the autolube system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last but not least, there\u2019s the question of eco-friendly ingredients as it\u2019s implicit in all of this that it will, eventually wash off. He added: \u201cIn fact it\u2019s not that challenging to make an environmentally acceptable lube, but it is much harder to make that one that performs.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Stevie Knight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adequate lubrication for deck equipment doesn\u2019t come down to \u201cit looks like good thick grease so it should work\u201d, Ben Bryant of Kl\u00fcber Lubrication told MJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-3006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessories-equipment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3008,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3006\/revisions\/3008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3006"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=3006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}