Pre-treatment and liquid painting plant for earthmoving vehicles
Eurotherm designs and manufactures a pretreatment and painting system for a leading international metalworking company that specializes in the design, production, and sale of tracked undercarriages for industrial and agricultural machinery.
The challenge: to design an integrated process for the preparation and painting of complex surfaces
As part of its expansion following the acquisition of a new industrial plant, the client company turned to Eurotherm with the goal of further improving its production through process solutions designed to ensure the mechanical performance and operational compliance of industrial components intended for heavy-duty operating cycles.
Fixed- or variable-gauge tracked undercarriages are, in fact, fundamental structural components of earthmoving machinery, specialized agricultural vehicles, drilling rigs, cranes, and work platforms designed to operate in highly abrasive and corrosive environments.
Mechanical stresses, exposure to the elements, contamination, and heavy-duty applications require surface protection systems capable of ensuring the coating’s durability and stability over time. However, the complexity of these manufacturing processes is not limited to surface performance requirements: complex geometries, heavy weights, surface irregularities, welds, joints, and machining operations create conditions that can compromise the proper formation of the protective film—and thus the durability of tracked undercarriage components.
The Eurotherm system: a complete finishing line for undercarriage components
The pretreatment and painting system designed by Eurotherm perfectly meets the customer’s finishing requirements, ensuring the protection of metal surfaces through the integration of process steps and in-line controls.
Overall, the system is configured as follows:
- a shot blasting booth with a shot recovery system;
- a wash bay with a liquid recovery system;
- two preparation booths (sandblasting);
- three pressurized liquid paint booths.
When designing the paint booth, special attention was paid to the method of applying liquid paint, with the implementation of spray guns with optimized transfer efficiency to allow the paint to reach even the hardest-to-reach areas.
Taking into account the size and weight of the workpieces being produced, the cabins are equipped with a retractable roof—with automatic, pneumatically operated opening and closing—that is either sliding or double-leaf, to allow the overhead crane to enter and the workpieces to be transferred into the work area.
Corrosion, Abrasion, and Wear: Functional Pretreatments for Protecting Undercarriage Components
Substrate preparation is an essential step in the process of painting metal surfaces intended for industrial applications. The various pretreatments—specifically, shot blasting, technical washing, and sanding—help create the ideal conditions for the subsequent application of liquid paint. Specifically:
- Shot blasting removes oxidation, scale, and contaminants, creating the proper bonding profile for the substrate
- Washing removes residues and impurities that could potentially affect the film’s adhesion
- Sanding helps to even out surfaces and shapes before finishing
Only after these operations have been properly carried out can the appropriate conditions for the subsequent painting be ensured.
Get in touch
Eurotherm supports heavy-duty industrial applications with systems designed to handle bulky components and complex processing cycles, ensuring operational continuity and integration between material handling, pretreatment, and painting.