We know what you’re looking for in leaf chain: high tensile strength, maximum wear life and pin retention. That’s why we manufacture Drives® Leaf Chain to increase uptime, reduce maintenance costs and keep operations moving along successfully.

Manufactured from high quality alloy steel, our chain’s press fit construction increases drive-out force and minimizes risk of pin rotation. Product testing has shown that Drives’ Leaf Chain with 8×8 lacing has 3.25X higher drive-off force than standard leaf chain, leading to 3.25X higher pin retention. Similarly, our 6×6 laced leaf chain has 2.40X greater drive-off force and pin retention.

As such, we think our product is essential for material handling applications – especially at rail and sea ports. Check out our brochure to learn more.

Leaf Chain

Features & Benefits

  • Materials

    Starting with the best materials leads to higher strength and better wear life. Our manufacturing process begins with raw materials that meet exacting standards for metal grade, mechanical properties, carbon and alloy content to ensure minimization of impurities that impact tensile and fatigue strength.

  • Fabrication

    Drives designs each component to exacting dimensional standards for optimal performance. Drives® Leaf Chain’s press fit construction increases drive-out force and minimizes risk of pin rotation, and we have the product testing to show it.

  • Heat Treatment

    Strict control of atmosphere, time and temperature optimize the material properties – increasing strength, durability and wear resistance.

  • Shot Peening

    We shot peen our roller and link plates for greater fatigue strength. This adds a layer of compressive stress that helps components resist failure when exposed to repeated high loads. In addition, we press steel balls through the pitch holes in a process called ballizing – effectively optimizing bearing contact between pins, bushings and linkplates to increase chain fatigue resistance and pin retention.

  • Lubrication

    We use a proprietary lubrication process on all lubricated chains for enhanced corrosion protection and extended wear life.

  • Preloading

    Following assembly, all chains are preloaded to firmly seat the pins and bushings. This is to reduce initial run-in and extend the wear life of the chain.

Applications

Material Transport

Choosing the Chain for Your Application

Use our Chain Configurator or Chain Engineer Mobile Web App for assistance selecting the right chain for your application. If you have a challenging demand beyond the scope of a standard Drives® chain, we would be excited to partner with you to provide custom-manufactured solutions to meet your specific needs.

Chain Configurator

Build and download a custom chain within a full 3D window with this state-of-the-art web app.

Chain Engineer

Explore our suite of mobile-friendly tools to help in the maintenance and selection of chain driven applications.