ProSilva is a rare sight in the forests of the UK, but a well-established brand in the Baltics, Europe, and South America
ProSiva are a Finnish company who have been manufacturing forestry equipment for five decades and produce harvesters and forwarders designed for thinning and continuous cover forestry markets.
ProSilva is part of Tampereen Konepajat Oy who are a group of companies that create advanced, economical, sustainable, and environmentally friendly tools for soil research, forestry, tillage, and transport. The Group employs three hundred mechanical engineering professionals at ten factories and has a turnover of EUR 55 million.
The first time I saw ProSilva’s harvesters and forwarders in the flesh, so to speak, was at the 2016 FinnMetko Exhibition and I recall thinking that this was a machine manufactured by someone who thought outside the box. By replacing traditional wheeled bogies with Haggblom track chains, ProSilva created a radically designed machine for soft and boggy ground conditions. A more traditional style harvester and forwarder wheeled bogie options are offered, but I was in awe of this design as I have worked on some very wet areas and trying to keep the forwarder above ground is demanding work.
The harvester on display at FinnMetko, had two large wheels at the rear and the tracks on the front. This layout increases ground clearance while reducing its footprint. The forwarder had excavator type tracked bogies front and back. I had a good look at all their machines and thought they looked the business, they were strong, superbly finished and used top quality components.
I have seen them at various forestry exhibitions over the years and have enjoyed watching their progress.
ProSilva produced something fundamentally different again at this years KWF Tagung – the J-Series pendulum arm eight-wheel drive twenty tonne load capacity forwarder. This project was started back in 2020 after information was gathered on the challenges the industry faces on off-road short haul timber transport.
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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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Ground conditions in thinning can cause many problems for forwarders. Only a small percentage of trees are removed, so on sideways sloping ground there is limited brash for the harvester to level the side slope for the forwarder. This can result in the forwarder sliding into the remaining crop in wet conditions, sliding to the downside of the slope when trying to climb over obstacles or the forwarder leaning over at an angle where the bolsters ring bark the trees. Keeping the forwarder laterally level gives good weight distribution and prevents gravity working against you. Each wheel bogie on the J-Series is controlled by its own hydraulically operated pendulum arm for continuous, fully automatic, lateral, and longitudinal levelling of the whole machine. The forwarder is capable of operating in an upright position even while driving on 24° side slopes. This also allows for a narrower overall width of just 2820mm without affecting stability. Due to the narrow construction, large turning angle and pendulum arms, the J- series can easily follow the trails of the harvester, without requiring wider strip roads. This leaves more trees for incremental forest growth.
The automation keeps the ground clearance constant using gyro-stabilized motion sensors. The ProSilva J-series is the only forwarder, which in addition to knowing its correct location, can control its own orientation as well. This opens up a whole new opportunity for implementing automated and autonomous driving, for example conditional automated returning to roadside or landing.
The hydraulics of the pendulum arms offer real-time load weight information as well as unsurpassed operator comfort. Another clever function is the ‘helicopter drive,’ where the operator can manually control the height and inclination of the forwarder, to prepare for traversing challenging terrain obstacles.
Ground clearance is between 350mm and 1150mm and the forwarder can traverse over stones and stumps up to 500mm high with ease. It has wheel specific torque and speed management on all eight wheels and each wheel hub has variable volume drive motor matched with a planetary gearbox. The drive system offers an impressive 325kN of tractive force. As it is a fully hydrostatic power transmission system this allows for an increased steering angle of +/-50° and the rotation speed of the wheels is adjusted by continuously checking the turning angle of the middle joint. This prevents rutting, which is usually the case when turning with the more traditional hydrostatic-mechanical transmission systems and engaging regular differential locks.
ProSilva’s J-Forwarder’s aims were to develop a manoeuvrable forwarder with a minimal footprint that would prevent rutting, soil compaction and which would avoid damaging the remaining trees but deliver a forwarder that is easy and fun to run. I believe they have achieved their goals!
Forest Machine Magazine is written and edited by a forest professional with over 40 years hands on experience. We are dedicated to keeping you informed with all the latest news, views and reviews from our industry.
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