Can I Exceed A Rigid Coupling's Torque Rating?

Release Date: May 13, 2020

Can I exceed your torque rating for Ruland rigid couplings?

Transcript

Location: Reynoldsburh, OH
Question: Can I exceed a rigid coupling's torque rating?
Answer:We rate our rigid couplings based on splippage on the unkeyed shaft. Once a keyway is introduced, the failure point normally becomes the shear of the key itself. Since a rigid coupling is made from a single piece of material like steel or stainless steel with no flexing elements, it has a tremendous amount of torque capacity. As a manufacturer, we have to rate to what we can reasonably test for. We have no way to account for material differences between the key stock, keyed shaft, and fit differences that occur between the key slot and the key stock. This is why we cannot give a higher rating to the keyed coupling versus the unkeyed coupling. Our guidance to this customer was to find out what the shear point of the key was. The 15,000 lbs-in. of torque is most likely not going to do anything to the rigid coupling. If the key could handle the torque, the recommend the user, at minimum, test to see if the rigid coupling is a suitable alternative for them.

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