Challenge: Hillside combines experiencing bolted joint failures on 95% of machines.
Hillside combines are machinery designed to harvest crops on hillsides. These combines operate with extreme side loading which leads to issues with bolt joints and wheel fatigue failures.
moveero supply inner and outer dual wheels for these hillside combines and Case were experiencing bolted joint failures on 95% of machines, which was not within the scope of moveero’s design control.
Solution: Innovative design to solve the problem
• Engineering team worked with customer to understand the problem and at moveero’s, Iowa
based Test center implemented FEA simulation and in-field testing.
• Various solutions (3 in total) were looked at by the two engineering teams
• The final solution – the bolt circle was increased using moveero’s hub adapter to grow the bolt
circle, offering a new design concept to solve the problem.
Outcome: No torque loss or broken bolts observed.
• moveero retained the customers business retained & further new business awarderd for all
new combines.
• The new design lead to a replacment of all previous generation wheels on combine fleets
running with a specialised leveling system.
• Special pricing was introdcued, to allow current machine owners to upgrade their wheel
package to the new concept dual wheel system.
Results:
✔️ Wheel system communized for two global OE machinery
✔️ No additional bolt failures reported
✔️ Customer impressed with moveero’s persistence in solving the problem
✔️ The final solution fully resolved the bolted joint issue on the combines. moveero’s decided to
implement the same solution on the John Deere combines as a means of creating the same
signature look and allowing for a reduction in product complexity.
