‘Mega dyno' takes Gates' belt testing to next level

SILOAM SPRING, Ark.—There's a trend emerging in the belting space. Namely, belts are being asked to do more with less—carry more load in a smaller, narrower package.

"That is probably the No. 1 thing that the market is asking for," said Taylor Jung, Gates Corp. senior director of global product line management.

"That is true in the industrial space in terms of packaging more conveyors or more fans or more pumps in smaller spaces, because footprint is expensive when you are building a manufacturing plant, for example. But when you look at the personal mobility space, you want narrow belts that run the back wheels of your scooters or motorcycles because the narrower the belt you can make, the smaller the scooter can be or the wider the rear wheel of the motorcycle can be from a design or look-and-feel aspect.

"So everyone," Jung said, "is driving to 'give me more capability in a smaller package.' "

To ensure customers in the heavy industrial belting space get the "smaller" belts that meet their growing expectations, Gates went big with its testing capabilities.

Really big.

Meet the "mega dyno."

The massive 42-foot-long, 12-foot-wide dynamometer was installed at the company's Siloam Springs facility in 2019 and is playing a central role in helping to develop and deliver the belts that meet customers' growing expectations.

The dynamometer, which can simultaneously test up to eight belts and can handle lengths between 8 and 28 feet, was designed internally by Gates engineers.

"The specification of what it is was defined by Gates, and it really had to be," Jung said. "There was nothing really off-the-shelf about this dyno. Nobody, to our knowledge, has built anything of quite its magnitude or quite its flexibility of operation."

And just as you'd expect from a dynamometer of this size, Jung said, it's having a big impact on Gates' ability to efficiently design products that meet customers' needs and bring its newest products to market quickly.

With the mega dynamometer, Gates can test its belts—both in-development and in market—more quickly. That means engineers have access to key data points earlier, which allows them to make needed adjustments from a design or even a materials perspective to ensure the product performs exactly as expected for as long as expected.

While Gates did not release specifics about the investment it made in the mega dynamometer, Jung did note it was a multi-million dollar cost. And it's an investment he said proves Gates' commitment to its customers.

"The Gates brand carries great reputation in the market, and that isn't by accident. And it's not because of what we have done in the last three years with the mega dyno," Jung said. "It extends back into our 110-plus-year history.

"… We have made that investment over years to support that rigorous testing, whether it's development testing or quality testing or facilitating the material changes that have been demanded of us in today's environment. All of that feeds the quality that the Gates brand stands for," Jung said. "This is just one piece of a much larger puzzle."

Another piece of the puzzle that the mega dynamometer is helping Gates achieve is the sustainability piece.

The mega dynamometer, with its 750,000 hp motor, requires a generator. But it isn't the drain on electrical resources you'd expect from a machine this big, Jung said.

"You have to feed the beast with lots of power," Jung said, "So what does it take? A big electric bill? Funny, because it's not as big as you might think."

The mega dyno is designed to harvest its own energy, powering itself as it runs and cutting back on the electrical power needed.

From a product perspective, the extra-large dynamometer is having a major impact on sustainability from the development of the more durable, smaller belting products. That, Jung points out, saves on time and resources.

"It has some tie-on effects because a smaller belt uses less materials, takes less raw material (and) takes less processing energy, so it inherently has less waste," Jung said.

"We're getting more capability out of a given amount of general resource—whether that be natural resource, energy, raw material, etc.—than we ever have."