The foresight to fit their Terex TS40 motor scraper with a tyre pressure monitoring system (TMS), as part of a tyre-management programme with Wakefield-based Earth Mover Tyres, has saved Ferrybridge power station both expense and downtime when a wheel bearing on one machine overheated. The alarm built into the TMS in the driver’s cab sounded and Darran Stone from Earth Mover Tyres was called out to determine the cause. He takes up the story.
“When we downloaded the tyre pressure data from the TMS unit we could see that the air temperature in the tyre was reaching the predetermined threshold set on the unit which triggered the alarm. We then proceeded to check all of the possible problems that we know might cause a cab alarm, but we could find absolutely no defect with the tyre or the system. However, when the vehicle was used again, the tyre monitoring system triggered the alarm, [and] after much head scratching one of the mechanics suggested that this could be something other than the tyre and he started to investigate.
The cause, it transpired, was a faulty wheel bearing which had caused the tyre to heat and, because the wheel rims on this particular vehicle are part of the hub, the heat from the wheel bearing was transferred to the hub/rim, which then caused the air temperature inside the tyre to heat up and set off the tyre monitoring system alarm.”
The TMS used by Earth Mover Tyres was supplied by AM Bromley of Buxton, Derbyshire, and is specifically designed for use in OTR tyres. Because it sits inside the tyre rather than attaching to a valve it is able to do more than just monitor the pressure within a tyre and, as in this case, provide data that could save the operator a lot of time and money.
Darren Stone concludes: “We have found that the data produced from TMS allows us to provide a more comprehensive service to our customers. A good OTR tyre maintenance programme is [about] more than just monitoring tyre pressure alone.”