Can you tell us a bit more about Dellner Brakes and its products?
Marcus Åberg: We’re a small company with 22 employees based in Falun, Sweden, but we’re part of the 700-employee, global Dellner Group. That gives us the best of both worlds − we not only have the flexibility and speed to market of a small company, but we can also call on production, sales and service facilities from all over the world.
We pride ourselves on cutting-edge innovation and highend quality, which has led to the development of worldbeating braking solutions, including our groundbreaking ‘stopping, turning and locking’ (STL) systems. We also produce a wide range of individual components − brake discs, hubs, pillow blocks, power supply units, turning and locking mechanisms − that customers can mix and match to suit their needs. All our systems and components are available in standard sizes, or we can customise them if our customers need something bespoke.
What are the key advantages of your STL systems for the cruise industry?
We’ve developed our STL systems to enable large marine vessels like cruise ships to change direction quickly and efficiently, and to provide maximum control and manoeuvrability. The systems are precision-designed to lower fuel consumption, reduce load on the propulsion systems and allow easy, safe maintenance of the propeller blades and shaft.
Your latest product is an electrical STL braking system. Can you tell us how that works?
Our new system is the world’s first fully automated electrical STL (eSTL) system, and we developed it in response to an increasing focus on global issues and a demand for smaller, flexible braking systems. It uses a disc brake to quickly stop the shaft in any position. After the brake has stopped the disc, a separate mechanism turns the disc and connected shaft at a variable speed to an exact position for locking. Once in position, the locking mechanism pushes a specially designed tapered pawl into a machined slot on the brake disc. This locks and holds the shaft securely in place, even in ship-failure modes. The electric brake also has a continuous-turning function that allows the shaft to be moved to any position precisely and can run for long periods, making maintenance, checking and testing so much easier.
What has Dellner Brakes got lined up for the industry in the future?
We have a strong, close working relationship with all our customers – it’s their feedback that drives us as a company, and our product development programme is a direct response to their needs within their own industries. Our eSTL system was the result of 12 years’ continuous R&D at our facility in Falun, and it’s that kind of commitment to innovative, technologically advanced systems that gives us the edge. We will continue to innovate and develop solutions to revolutionise marine and industrial braking, so just watch this space for further developments
