NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011
E U R O P E A N R U B B E R J O U R N A L
25
T E X T I L E - R E I N F O R C E D R U B B E R
www.europeanrubberjournal.com
Dredging hoses are multi-layer
constructions, which have to perform in
the cold, in the heat and keep going while they
suck up rocks, scrap and abrasive sand from
the sea bed. Trelleborg is using a high-tech
manufacturing technique to ensure the
products last longer and to innovate new
products which cannot be made by any other
technique.
ERJ has previously written about the
TANIQ
approach to fibre winding. The company has
developed the system further and one of its first
commercial applications is going to be in the
manufacture of heavy duty hoses at Trelleborg
in the Netherlands.
The companies have successfully applied
the fibre reinforcement methods in expansion
joints and pipe plugs (to form temporary seals
while repairs are carried out in drains and
sewers). For this, the production is about to
start. Simultaneously Trelleborg plans to use the
same approach to manufacture other products
based around fibre-reinforced rubber. Examples
of this are dredging hoses, oil sand hoses and
lifting bags.
TANIQ
's approach is to use sophisticated
numerical analysis to calculate the stresses
throughout a flexible, fibre-reinforced envelope.
The system looks at the plane stresses across
the surfaces, and throughout each layer within
the construction, so that they can optimise the
distribution of stresses and hence fibre
reinforcement layers though the thickness of
the product.
Once the stress pattern has been calculated
and the fibre layout designed,
TANIQ
uses a
robotic manufacturing cell to apply the fibres
and the rubber compound over a mandrel so as
to ensure perfect repeatability from component
to component. The same robotic approach
applies tapes used to apply pressure to the
component during curing.
Historically, these components have been
hand-built. This introduces three areas of
production risk – first is that the operator varies
the amount and orientation of the sheets placed
on the component, and second that the fibres
can not correctly be aligned with the stresses.
Third, the tapes are not always applied with the
same tension.
All these risks are eliminated using the
TANIQ
approach. The result is a component which
uses the fibres more efficiently and can
therefore be thinner and lighter than
conventional designs. Furthermore, since the
lay-up process is fully automated, every aspect
of production is repeatable, even when there is
By David Shaw, ERJ Staff, dshaw@crain.com
A unique, science-based fibre winding
system is helping Trelleborg
Infrastructure to improve reliability and
repeatability in heavy-duty hoses,
while permitting the company to
develop new products and investing in
state of the art production technology
in Western-Europe.
an interval of months or years between
production cycles.
As a result, said Ruud Bokhout, Business
Development Director for Trelleborg
Infrastructure, Trelleborg continues to
manufacture its more complex dredging hoses
for the EU market in the Netherlands.
In the next few months, said Bokhout,
TANIQ
will install one manufacturing
cell at the Trelleborg
facility in Ridderkerk, the Netherlands and has
already planned a second, larger unit to make a
variety of fibre-reinforced rubber components up
to 14 metres in length at the site.
■
Trelleborg uses TANIQ’s
reinforcement technology
on dredge hoses
New products for the oil
sands market
Apart from dredging hoses, Trelleborg expects to use
the technique in hoses for the oil sands market in
Northern Canada. The oil-bearing rocks are processed
in large extraction facilities. Abrasive material is sent
down pipes and hoses. Trelleborg supplies these
hoses, and expects to use the
TANIQ
approach in their
manufacture in due course.
The technique opens up new opportunities.
Currently the common way to make elbows in the
pipes is to use steel fabrications, but these can wear
out after just 3 months. Trelleborg want so make these
elbows in rubber, as this offers improved wear life and
is more flexible. These elbows cannot be made using
conventional techniques.
Manufacturing cells for
robotic assembly
To make a components around 2m in size, the first
manufacturing cell requires a floor area of 100 m
2
. This
comprises two robotic work stations. While one station
is performing all the assembly operations, the other is
available for an operator to add any finishing markings
to the product and perform other ancillary work and
then replace the mandrel for the next production cycle
Once wrapping operations are completed on the
active station, the robot switches stations and begins
work on the newly-prepared mandrel.
And you thought all you
needed to know about hoses
was 54.7 degrees?
Those in the hose industry may think that
sophisticated stress analysis is not needed to analyse
a hose. Long ago, engineers worked out that the
neutral angle in a simple hose is 54.7 degrees. The
reinforcement needs to be applied at that angle, in
order to deliver optimum fibre performance.
However, this is not the whole story, especially in
multi-layer hoses. Inefficient transfer of stresses within
the hose wall means that the inner layer of
reinforcement will carry most of the load. To optimise
the efficiency, not every layer should be assembled at
the neutral angle.
Siebe Nooij,
CEO
and founder at
TANIQ
, said that in a
multilayer hose made with high modulus fibres (e.g.
aramid), if both reinforcement layers are the same,
then the second layer might only carry 50 percent of its
maximum load capacity, while the inner layer is on the
point of failure. The more layers are used, the further
this efficiency is reduced if no action is taken. This, he
said, points to inefficiencies in the system.
TANIQ
’s
mathematical model of the hose wall allows engineers
to optimize for the most efficient use of fibre
reinforcement, even for dredging hoses which carry
eight or more layers of reinforcement. This also
prevents over-designing the hose.
Trelleborg makes
large-scale components
“This new technology enhances our offering, providing added value to our customers in terms of light-
weighting and a superior component that can give outstanding performance with incomparable consistency.”
— Peter Stello, MD of Trelleborg Infrastructure, pictured (left) with Siebe Nooij, MD of
TANIQ