I saw this PRINOTH Rubber tracked Ponsse Buffalo at Interforst in Munich in 2018 and thought it would have been ideal for some of the wet flat peaty sites of western Scotland and Wales.
Here is some information on the project
PRINOTH has been participating in EU-funded Project together with the leading cut-to-length forestry OEM, PONSSE, in a consortium of European forestry institutes to develop a low-impact forwarder.
Following a long tradition of developing solutions to a more sustainable environmental protection and as the heir of the Muskeg all-track tractor invented by Bombardier in 1953, PRINOTH was enthusiastic to provide its know-how in this challenging off-road application.
This project was started through the Nordic-Baltic Network for Operations R&D financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers – Forest Research and aims at finding technical solutions to offer a vehicle with good flotation and low impact on soil.
Consortium members were especially interested in investigating the possibility to set more stringent thresholds for damages, to adopt improved operations practices and to better regulate ruts’ creation and treatment.
The solution was the development of the OnTrack Forwarder, a prototype tracked timber transporter aiming to be as productive and durable as conventional machines, but much gentler compared to standard forwarders.
Even when carrying a 14-ton load, this gentle giant exerts less pressure than a human footprint on the ground, as low as 4 psi (pound per square inch) or 281 g/cm2, reducing wheel rutting and soil disturbance by over 70%.
The vehicle was created by fitting the chassis of a reputable timber forwarder onto an undercarriage with metal-embedded rubber tracks. The vehicle is composed of two (2) PRINOTH PANTHER undercarriages, a T6 front portion onto which a PONSSE Buffalo forwarder is mounted, as well as a T12 undercarriage used under the load part.
PANTHER undercarriages on rubber tracks provide more speed and better traction than a regular wheeled-forwarder thus significantly increasing productivity for businesses.
“The most important socio-economic benefits lie in the potential for contractors to work more consistently throughout the year while meeting stringent regulations,” said by project coordinator Rasmus Astrup of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO).
“Smaller contractors, who are the majority in this industry, have to service large capital investments and are dependent on being able to use their investments productively for as much of the year as possible.”
At this stage in the project, PRINOTH has proudly demonstrated its high payload capability and high travel, low vibrations, more comfortable undercarriage, as well as its low ground pressure capacities which exceed those of any competitors’ thanks to a robust and well-engineered platform.
Overall, the advanced concept team at PRINOTH is pushing the limit of its track and undercarriage technology with this project.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the vehicle concept will have to be optimized before the vehicle can be industrialized.
“At PRINOTH, we’re happy to test the limits of our undercarriage in such a challenging application.
This is going to help us extract some key learnings from this project to apply selected findings to other applications.
As for forestry, I think we have proven that it is possible to move large quantities of wood with low impact on soils,” commented Alessandro Ferrari, Vice-President of Sales at PRINOTH.
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That’s a remarkable amount of work hours for a single machine, the Norcar 600 owned by Erkki Rinne is taken well care of, it even has the original Diesel engine.
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Kieran Anders is a forestry contractor working in the lake district. His work involves hand cutting and extracting timber using a skidder and tractor-trailer forwarder.
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It is not possible to eliminate chain shot, but there are simple steps that can be taken to reduce the risk.
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Arwel takes great pride in the fact that the mill has no waste whatsoever, “the peelings are used for children’s playgrounds, gardens and for farm animals in barns in the winter and the sawdust has multiple uses in gardens and farms as well.
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Timber hauliers need to encourage young blood in, and also look after the hauliers we have, we need make the sector a safe and positive place to work.
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