What does side load passing a clip and how do that a clip spacing? Let’s find out!

With side loads, there isn’t really an ISO standard on how to rate side load capacity of a clip. It is only manufacturers decision on what to put on their datasheets. So we need to take a look at it. What is failing? How is the quick fix? So obviously, does a clip fail when it breaks or when it deforms or when it backs away from the rail, which allows for lateral rail movement? You call if the rail is allowed to move the lateral direction, it normally forces the pad from underneath it. And that is again, a failed system. Whereas we’re very careful what we state on our datasheet and it’s normally based on the movement of the clip. So if a clip moves too much away from the rail, where the rail is allowed to move to the other direction, for us, we call that a system failure. So with Gantrex RailLok™ Clips, the new range of Gantrex due to the big improvements that we’ve done with regards to the way the forces transfer between the upper component in the lower component of the clip and the active contact the clip provides, it has substantially improved the clip performance and limited the movement of the clip. Especially under dynamic loads where we have very high cyclic loads on the clip without any additional reinstallation.

With regard to clip spacing, again, it is a function of the rail profile. Right. So we have to calculate the profile, how much the rail actually deflects between two clips. As you can see here, imagine this is a clip, this a clip. Wait to see how much the clip is, actually how much the rail actually deflects between these two clip locations. And there is a format that we use to minimize that rail deflection or to have an acceptable range of rail deflection between two clip locations to ensure that the pad stays underneaths the rail and the pad does not escape from other further out in the lateral direction. There is also some uplift forces that we have to look at as well to make sure that the upper forces do not stress the clips too much. Normally when we look at it at clip spacing, the best practice is to keep keep the clip spacing at around 600 millimeters or so. Even if we can’t calculate that higher spacing where we can we can afford higher flow spacing. We still would like to use that 600 millimeter range is the maximum range for the clips or optimize our system to achieve that 600 millimeter clip spacing center to serve between two pairs of clips.

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