Whitney Brockway
Your landfill compactor is one of your largest and most important investments. Protecting it against premature failures due to daily wear and tear is crucial. Choosing the proper cleat and wheel pattern along with machine guards and wire wrap protection, enhances your compactor’s ability to perform to its optimal potential. Unit guarding also protects your machine and extends the life of critical drive components at a fraction of the cost to replace and repair these items, not to mention unnecessary down time.
Factors that Affect Your Compactor Wheels
Don’t let just anybody tell you what you should be ordering. Every site is different. Be sure to consider: soil type (clay, gravel, sand, etc), waste stream intake (sludge, MSW, C&D, etc), cover material(s), regional climate and geographical location. There are just a few important factors that affect the efficiency and desired performance you should expect from your wheel investment.
Many cleats reduce traction due to plugging which causes loss of the wheels’ ability to sink to the outer drum face. Compaction takes place at the drum from static weight supplied by your machines total weight. If the cleats don’t penetrate to full depth while reducing material size, your compaction is reduced dramatically. Not enough cleats per wheel or cleats that are wider than 6” to 8” at the cutting face also cause loss of compaction along with increased wheel spin. These factors increase fuel consumption and raise unit operating temperatures; decreasing drive train life and allowing fluffing or too much rebound of the working face. More daily cover is then required which also increases your operating costs. Single cleat contact at the 12 o’clock position during wheel rotation is also important. Twenty-five percent of the machine’s weight is transferred through one cleat contact patterns; two or even three cleat contact patterns reduce penetration by two or three times respectively. Daily cleaning and removal of wrapped debris from critical drive components is expensive and even dangerous at times. Cleats and the pattern they are welded in help your machine place as much trash as possible into every cubic yard of air space.
Cleat Patterns and Types
Recommendations for pattern types should be determined through proper questions that pertain to your landfill specifically. Not all landfills are the same. The correct pattern will provide you with the right tool to help your machine compact to its maximum potential. Some sites are so specialized due to material type that very unique, customized patterns are necessary. Cleat patterns include, but are not limited to:
- Cleat Combination Patterns—Preferred for high volume MSW and C&D sites. It annihilates construction materials and provides optimal traction performance in solid terrain and frozen conditions. Highly effective in reducing side-slip for those performing a lot of slope work. The cleat combination pattern improves traction and compaction. Can be offered with 8.5” cleat height to extend cleat life, increase penetration for aggressive traction, and decrease wheel spin.
- Collateral chevron—Directional primary left and right hand cleats provide exceptional traction and size reduction while enhancing site appearance and finish.
- Inline chevron—Primarily used in transfer stations to provide operators a smooth ride and increase floor life.
- Transverse traction—Cleats are mounted radially and horizontally for enhanced traction and slope stability.
- Chevron standard—The primary, introductory industry standard pattern with directional right and left hand chevron rows. Offers favorable tractive effort and size reduction.
- Advanced Chevron—Aggressive pattern using a combination of cleats: twist-torques and scissor tips. Providing on-contact, full depth, size reduction. Preferred for high volume MSW and C&D sites.
- Dual helix—The only true uni-directional pattern; no specific wheel position assignments on machinery. Supports size reduction and enhances self cleaning in severe sludge conditions for continuous tractive effort and compaction.
- Inverted chevron—The most efficient general purpose pattern. Paired with left and right hand twist-torque cleats for the most tractive, equally spaced, waste reductive support a pattern can provide.
- Kentron pull—This farm tractor tire pattern pulls waste to the center of each wheel and provides great traction.
Cleat types include:
- Twist torque—Extended puncture points create extreme ground pressure and size reduction upon contact. Mirror image, left and right hand, twisted bases create a lateral torque that no other cleat can accomplish. This tip uses the machines weight to force out any trapped air to pack waste tight. High carbon steel, along with additional height, ensures the long wear life of twist-torque cleats. Preferred site type: C&D or MSW.
- HDT Wedge—Thewedge shape provides excellent wear life, traction, and size reduction for all site conditions. It is designed to get the job done. Preferred site type: C&D or MSW.
- HDT Wedge Narrow—Narrow version of the HDT Wedge is 6.5” wide. It provides clearance for machines with cleaner bar assemblies. Similar in shape to the HDT Wedge, but a little heavier at the upper end. Preferred site type: MSW.
Wheel and Machine Guarding
Wheel and machine guarding allow for the continued operation of your machine between scheduled preventative maintenance. Machine guarding options protect final drive seals, oscillating rear axle pins, exposed axle surfaces, under body panels, etc. OEM factory and custom guarding part options will save you money and protect your investment. Wheel guarding options keep inner wheel edges true and clean, reducing frictional wear that would normally destroy inner sidewalls and bolt cylinder extensions. Rebuilt wheel sets that have wheel guards installed will most likely be recleatable when the time comes to order a new set of wheels because of their inner wheel edge wear prevention. As a side note, if you can catch the outer wheel edge wear before it is less than 0.75” thick, your wheel set will absolutely 100 percent be recleatable. These savings are substantial, an average of $11,000 per set, because outer drums, inner sidewalls and inner bolt cylinder extensions will not need replacing or repair and there will be no need to remove or replace the original outer drum. Wheel guard types include:
- A static fixed rolling guard keeps wire and other types of debris from the inner axle brake and seal area. These guards work well in most MSW landfills where the waste stream lends itself to a higher intake of wrapping materials such as: wire, carpet cut-offs, bed springs, plastic slittings and hosing.
- A segmented weld-on static rolling guard is the same as the standard fixed guard but has replaceable sections to make it easy to repair or replace segments as required. They are designed for onsite field installation.
- An oscillating rolling guard is a specialized guard system that freely moves within the wheel body’s inner edge. This type of guard works great for standard service MSW debris. This guard is always flush with the bottom of the outer drum at the twelve o’clock position allowing full cleat penetration at all times as the machine moves back and forth over the working face. It is virtually free of edge wear and eliminates the required hard-facing (that other guards need) maintenance to retain guard height.
- A segmented cleat rolling guard is a combination guard that includes a segmented wall with distinct sections connected by a radially installed steeple cleat. They are easy to repair and replace individual segments as required. They are also designed for onsite field installation.
Enhance Your Compactor’s Performance
Your landfill compactor is one of your largest, most important investments: protect it, guard it, maintain it. Use your complimentary site visits to educate and discover what options are necessary for your specific location. Remember: not every site was created equal and there are solutions out there. Choose the proper cleat, cleat pattern, wheel and machine guards to enhance your compactor’s performance, increase wear life and protect your investment. Forget about unnecessary down time—no one has a budget or a clock for that anymore. Save yourself some money and get what works best for you.
Whitney Brockway is Marketing Coordinator and handles Northwest/Midwest Sales for Terra Compactor Wheel (Gadsden, AL). She can be reached at [email protected] or visit www.TerraCompactorWheel.com. Like Terra Compactor Wheel on Facebook. Schedule a complimentary site visit from Terra to assist in the education and discovery process of what unique factors will affect your compactor’s performance.For visual representation of each cleat pattern and/or type listed above visit www.TerraCompactorWheel.com and click on ‘cleats’ and ‘patterns’ or ‘styles’.For visual representation of each wheel guard listed above, or a briefing on available machine parts from Terra visit www.TerraCompactorWheel.com and click on ‘guards’ and ‘wheel wire wrap’ or ‘machine’.