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What's track shoe?

Jan 26,2022

The track shoe is one of the undercarriage parts of construction machinery, and is a wearing part of the construction machinery used. Commonly used in excavators, bulldozers, crawler cranes, pavers and other construction machinery.
The structure of the track shoe
Commonly used track shoes are divided into three types according to the grounding shape, including single rib, three rib and flat bottom, and some also use triangular track shoes. Single-reinforced track shoes are mainly used for bulldozers and tractors, because the track shoes are required to have high traction capacity when such machinery works. However, it is rarely used on excavators. This kind of track shoe is only used when a drill frame is installed on the excavator or when a large horizontal thrust is required. High traction force is required when turning by the sub, so the higher tread bars (ie stabs) will squeeze away the soil (or ground) between the tread bars, thus affecting the mobility of the excavator.
Steel track shoes can be divided into: excavator shoes, bulldozer shoes, these two are the most commonly used, with steel as the raw material. Then there is the wet floor used by the bulldozer, commonly known as "triangle plate", which is a cast plate. Another type of cast plate is used on crawler cranes. The weight of this plate can range from tens of kilograms to hundreds of kilograms.
The use of track shoes
Most excavators use three-rib track shoes, and a few use flat-bottom track shoes. When designing a three-rib track shoe, firstly, the ground specific pressure and the meshing soil capacity between the track bar and the ground should be obtained to ensure the necessary adhesion; secondly, the track shoe should have high flexural strength and wear resistance. The three-rib track shoe generally has two mud-clearing holes. When the track shoe rotates around the drive wheel, the mud on the chain link can be automatically removed by means of the gear teeth, so the mud removal hole should be located between the two screw holes that fix the track shoe on the chain link.


In order to protect the ground surface and reduce the turning resistance of the crawler walking device used in the swamp or farmland, it is more appropriate to use the extended crawler and the flat bottom crawler. In order to ensure that when the crawler chain is in any position (including grounding, rotating around the driving wheel and guide wheel, and the upper suspension position), the adjacent two crawler shoes will not be caught between stones and cause excessive stress. The distance is adjusted accurately and the lap lip of appropriate shape should be designed. The function of the lap lip is to make the track shoes abut against each other, forming a belt that connects end to end. Track shoes should be installed sequentially in the same direction. The smaller the pitch of the track, the smaller the rise of the track chain when it runs between the drive wheel and the guide wheel. In this way, the running uniformity is good, the wear of the crawler chain is low, and the driving efficiency is high when walking. However, the minimum pitch value should be determined according to the machine weight and the number of rows of the crawler chain. Generally, the hole spacing on the two rows of chain rails where the track shoes are installed should be larger, so that the track shoes with different grounding specific pressures can be replaced. The walking device used in the swamp requires very wide track shoes and track surfaces, and such ultra-wide track shoes sometimes have high bending stress. For example, when the excavator is working on the ground mixed with residual tree roots, a part of the machine weight falls on a track shoe supported by tree roots, so that the track shoe has a very high bending stress, which affects the track. life of the board. In order to prevent the damage and bending of the track shoes, the section coefficient and bending strength must be increased. To increase the section coefficient, it is necessary to increase the height of the tread bars, but this will significantly increase the turning resistance and affect the mobility of the excavator. Therefore, steel rolled hollow track shoes should be used for walking devices with a width of more than 700 mm for swamps. Most of the two ends of the track shoes used in swamps are made of slope angles, which is convenient to protect the ground surface, reduce the turning resistance and sinking degree, and when walking on hard ground, the shortening of the supporting arm can reduce the bending moment carried by the edge. 
Excavators with a track shoe width exceeding 800 mm are mainly used in swamps and should not be used in general occasions. The excavator with widened and extended crawler walking device is especially suitable for pipeline engineering.


Wear law of track shoes
During normal operation, the track pin rotates slowly backward in the pin hole, the two wear evenly, the pin hole gradually becomes larger, and the pin gradually becomes thinner. If the operation is improper, such as high-speed turning, abrupt start, or entering muddy water, weeds, etc. to block the pins, it will cause the left and right sides of the track shoes to be over-stressed and sag, and the pins will be deformed and bent. Rotation, the pin and the pin hole become sliding friction, and the friction part is limited to a small part of the contact surface, the pin is gradually ground into a crank shape, and the pin hole also becomes an ellipse. The increase in the pin hole also causes the track pitch to be lengthened (the pitch is the center distance of the holes at both ends of the track shoe), so the track shoe and the drive wheel grind each other, the track shoe is worn through, and the drive wheel teeth are blade-shaped. According to the measurement, when the pitch is changed from 174 mm to 184 mm, the opening width of the driving gear teeth is changed from 87 mm to 97 mm, and the normal rolling meshing is completely destroyed at this time.


Since the track shoe pitch is elongated, it also causes the rollers to jump during walking, which accelerates the wear of the track shoe runway. When the subsidence of the runway is greater than 4 mm, it should be repaired.
The wear of the guide part of the track shoe is mainly caused by the deviation of the track, the severe deformation of the track shoe, and the excessive axial shaking of the roller and guide wheel.
Common scrapped track shoes are severely worn or worn out at the part that engages with the drive wheel.
Repair of track shoes
The wear of the track shoe mainly has two parts: the raceway surface and the track pin hole. It is very simple to repair. After the raceway is worn, a groove sags, and when the depth does not exceed 2~3 mm, it can be directly repaired by surfacing welding. When the wear is deep, steel bars of different sizes can be filled in the grooves according to the specific conditions, and then welded from all sides. The pin hole should be restored to the original size and the center position of the original hole after grinding. For this purpose, cut the worn pin hole, insert a standard size pin, then heat it to about 800 ℃, and then roll up the edge of the ear. Add a semi-circular iron plate to the outside of the incision and weld it firmly with electric welding. The track shoes thus repaired can last for more than 100 shifts.


Substitute steel for track shoes
The track shoes of tracked vehicles are generally made of high manganese steel with a history of nearly a hundred years of use. This is because high manganese steel has a prominent feature, that is, it undergoes impact hardening under the action of impact load, making it form a surface layer that is both hard and wear-resistant, while still maintaining the toughness and plasticity of its inner structure. However, high manganese steel is used as a track shoe, which is often damaged early due to cracks, inverted teeth and deflection during use, and has a low service life. In order to overcome this shortcoming, a low-alloy high-strength steel 30SiMnMoV(Ti) steel based on domestic resources and easy to produce has been developed, and it has been successfully used to replace high-manganese steel to manufacture track shoes.
processing methods


The processing technology of the track shoe of the profile is generally: the use of profile cutting, drilling (punching), heat treatment, straightening, painting and other processes; the track of the bulldozer is single-reinforced, and the general paint color is yellow; It is three-rib, and the paint color is black. The material purchased for the profile is generally 25MnB, and the final heat treatment hardness of the material is HB364~444.

Keyword:

crawler crane undercarrige parts

track shoe

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