The Essential Knowledge of Ratchet Tie Down Straps

The widely known fact is that the assembly of tie down strap and ratchets usually called ratchet tie down, if we use cam buckle instead of ratchet buckle then it’s cam buckle tie down,it’s pretty straight forward,isn’t it? Cam buckle tie downs are only for light duty use,and 2”cam buckles are the biggest size we will see in the real world use,and it’s still light duty. Compare to cam buckle the ratchets are stronger and more widely used,the available sizes of ratchets are 1”,2”,3”and 4”,and the ratchet buckle generally has higher working load limit than the  cam buckle, with 3,333LBS,5,400LBS working load and a design factor of 3:1,these ratchets have 10,000LBS and 16,2000LBS breaking strength respectively,which are pretty strong for most tie down applications.

So far we talked about tie down devices for flatbeds or similar commercial vehicles, we will see there are other kind of trucks,the typical one is box truck,and most of them have E Tracks installed inside the truck,for these rigs we use e track straps. In fact semi trailer has much bigger share than flatbed truck,the percentage maybe around 80%,of course this is only estimation but you get the idea,and the conclusion is that e tack straps are by far the most popular tie downs. With 1,000lbs working load  limit and 3,000lbs minimum breaking strength,e track straps are not as strong as flatbed tie down straps, the low working load limit of e track straps stems from box truck wall provides support for the loads inside the truck,come to think of it,  the loads won’t fall off the bed,not going to roll over,it’s much safer than the cargo out there on the flatbeds,therefore low strength tie downs can be used to secure the loads. You also have e track cargo bar,decking beam,rope tie off,etc. at your disposal,with e track ratchet straps you will be able to secure any kind of load ,make the transportation experience as good as it can be ,but remember that no matter what you can’t be more careful than it should be when it comes to your important truck and load ,make sure your load are tied down properly all the time.

In first paragraph we talked about design factor of ratchet tie downs,which is 3:1,so the working load limit is 1/3 of maximum breaking strength for ratchet straps, for comparison purpose we know that the binder chain has a design factor of 4:1,which basically says that for the chains the working load limit will be 1/4 of their breaking strength,which indicates that tie down chains are designed for tougher environment than tie down straps are in. The most common materials in making tie down webbing are nylon and polyester,which serve different tie down applications. Nylon webbing has better elongation than polyester,so for shock absorption wise nylon is ideal material while polyester usually is used to make tie downs for heavy equipment. Elongation,tensile strength,abrasion and environment,these have to be taken into consideration when making tie down strap. Breaking strength has to reach the recommendation level no matter what,and elongation has to meet the requirement,abrasion and environment sometimes are not that clear cut,when designing tie down we may have to consider the most extreme conditions these tie down straps may be in,or we may just consider the normal transportation environment.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Twitter
  • Technorati
  • Live
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace

22 comments to The Essential Knowledge of Ratchet Tie Down Straps

Leave a Reply

  

  

  


*

You can use these HTML tags

<a href=""title=""><abbr title=""><acronym title=""><b><blockquote cite=""><cite><code><del datetime=""><em><i><q cite=""><strike><strong>

Categories

Pages