How it started
Hans Renold was a Swiss engineer who came to England in 1873. In 1880 he invented & patented the bush roller chain.
Previously chain was only made up of pins and plates and all the load was carried between the pin and the plates (the intersection between the green and yellow inner plates in the diagram below). The introduction of the bush (red) ensures the load was carried all along the red area giving a much longer chain life. Long chain life remains key objective of quality chain manufacturers.
Today, Renold Chain has a multitude of innovative features to cope with the most demanding operating environments.
Development and refinement of manufacturing processes such as surface finishing and heat treatment along with the use of high quality steel has brought further substantial improvements to chain life. New designs are still being introduced to improve the wear life of Renold Chain.
Transmission Chain Components
exploded view of all roller chain components
Journal bearings
Chain is a series of journal bearings joined together, by side plates. This bearing is where the chain wear occurs and where lubrication is needed.
Rollers
Rollers can either be curled (i.e made from sheet curled round) or be solid (made from bar and extruded). Solid rollers give improved resistance to shock loading and fatigue. Curled rollers are normally more concentric but are sometimes forced to open under heavy load.
Bushes as with rollers can be either curled or solid with the same benefits and drawbacks as a roller. Normally heat treated to improve wear, and sometimes coned to make bore parallel when pushed with an interference fit into the inner plates.
Plates are normally waisted. The thicker the waist normally the better the load bearing characteristics.Renold plates have a unique shape and precise holes to give extra long life. Normally heat treated to improve performance and sometimes shot peened to improve fatigue resistance. The hole quality is important for longer life.
Pins are normally ground to give a smooth surface for improved wear. They are “through hardened” for resistance to heavy loading or “case hardened” for a hard surface finish but a softer more flexible core. Riveted after fixing through the outer plate. Renold chains have softened ends to make disassembly of the chain easy.
When the first three components are assembled, this becomes the inner link.
The final part of the chain assembly is the outer link.
Configurations
Simplex, duplex and triplex variations are common. Up to decaplex (10 strands) is available:
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