Product category:
Gears, brakes, couplings and engines
News Release from: Brevini | Subject: Planetary gearboxes
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 17 June 2002
More torque puts planetary gearboxes to
new uses
The small size, low-weight and high-torque characteristics of Brevini's planetary gearboxes are playing a major role in the evolution of cableway and ski-lift technology into urban transport systems.
The small size, low-weight and high-torque characteristics of Brevini's planetary gearboxes are playing a major role in the evolution of cableway and ski-lift technology into urban transport systems, amusement parks and also scenic areas which are both difficult for land transport and environmentally sensitive In the past, the medium to high output torques required by cable car/ski lift systems meant that conventional parallel shaft gearboxes were used
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 1 Aug 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Planetary gearboxes are ideal for driving peristaltic pumps in the water industry, as Jon Snaith of Brevini UK explains.
However, these consumed a lot of space and were heavy and expensive.
Today, they are being replaced by compact, lightweight and competitively priced planetary gearboxes from Brevini.
Among the company's major projects in this area, one of the most prestigious is the cable car system that carried 3000 persons in an hour installed at the Universal Expo 2000 in Hanover.
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Thames Water has replaced old Varatio Strateline gearboxes with new Brevini multistage planetary gearboxes on a series of half-bridge scrapers at Maidenhead Sewage Treatment Works.
The Hanover cable car is driven by the combination of a planetary gearbox system and an axial piston hydraulic motor.
The gearbox, a slewing multistage reduction unit, is from Brevini's RPR range and is designed specifically for rotational control.
It has a ring gear connected, through which it pulls the cable cars with strong output support from a built- in forged pinion.
In addition to the RPR units, other planetary gearboxes from Brevini's Standard range are used for auxiliary functions relating to the system, such as automatic hooking/unhooking of the cable cars.
The advantages offered by Brevini's planetary gear units in this application are many.
Apart from being up to 60% lighter and about half the size of a conventional gearbox for the same output, the planetary units offer efficiencies up to 98%, high reliability, inline assembly, easy disassembly and re-assembly, and high transmittable torque values with lower costs as compared to other reduction gear systems.
To obtain the proper speed and torque requirements from the multistage planetary units hydraulic motor drives are used.
These provide advantages over electrical motor drives since some of the shock loads from the cable car operation can be absorbed internally.
The international nature of Brevini's business means that the company is able to support the cable car/ski lift industry with a highly effective pre and after-sales operation, providing service and spare parts throughout the world.
This is necessary because the lifts, just like plant and machinery, have to be shut down periodically to enable operating parts to be serviced or replaced.
Local availability means that the downtime resulting from this process, and hence the lost revenue, is minimised.
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