Diagnostics of the Thermal Condition of the Cable Gear Used in the Drive of a Wood Chipper

Early detection of the causes of malfunction of toothed gears, cable gears, and various types of drives enables the prevention of breakdowns and related downtime. The work concerns the possibility of using terminography in order to assess the thermal state of the V-belt of the tension transmission used in the drive of a wood chipper. This device is exposed to dynamic loads and one of the main elements transmitting the drive is a cable gear with a V-belt. The paper presents the use of thermography to evaluate the operation of a cable gear with a heat-welded V-belt. As a diagnostic characteristic, the dependence of temperature changes of the belt and pulleys on the variable load of the chipper over time was adopted. The variable load on the device results from the feeding time of the branches and their cross-section. The aim of the work was to investigate the influence of variable transmission load on the durability and life of the V-belt. It has been found that for the cable transmission it is desirable to ensure that the temperature of the belt around the circumference is similar and changes little.