secrets of the Hilman roller

some years back we bought 10,000 lbs of Hilman rollers
actual number was 10 individual units--each one thousand lbs in weight with load capacity of 880,000 lbs each--- all Hilman products are metric ton rated
they were unused surplus from the local naval shipyard--- in use welded to nuclear reactor containments in surface ships and subs undergoing
---shipbreaking----takeout reactors scale 2.4 to 2.8 million lbs- reactors routed to Hanford or Idaho repository --the rollers allowed transfer to barge

so today i am curious about construction of the popular 10 ton skates and do teardown

main surprise---manufacture is in metric units--12 individual rolls are in the 10 ton dolly each roll 80 mm long with 30 mm diameter

four of these bear full load rating of performing unit--22,000 lbs


actual contact area of 10 ton roller is one square inch--combined contact area of all four laden rolls --thats 22,000 psi--but of course not concentrated in a 1" by 1" square

video link demonstrates home made skates used in moving 5500 lb Mori sl-1 lathe--i am driving truck

Machinery Moving with a Tow Truck - YouTube

The Hilman type rollers work ok but will chew up a concrete floor at heavier weights, if you don't run them on plates. We tend to go with regular steel wheel rollers on anything over around 10 tons, if we don't plate them.

m16ty said:

The Hilman type rollers work ok but will chew up a concrete floor at heavier weights, if you don't run them on plates. We tend to go with regular steel wheel rollers on anything over around 10 tons, if we don't plate them.

Click to expand...

Hertzian Contact Stress Calculator

looks like 1000 pounds on a 1 inch diameter roller, 4 inches long, is about guaranteed to blow up your concrete floor, with Hertzian sheer stress on the order of 10,000 psi, compressive on the order of 30,000. (assuming concrete is 50GPA)


100 pounds might still be enough: max compressive stress is 10,000 pounds and sheer stress is 3,000.