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So far as we all know that when assemble tie down strap and ratchets together we get ratchet strap, if we use cam buckle instead of ratchet buckle then it’s cam buckle tie down, it’s pretty straight forward, isn’t it? Due the low strength of the cam buckle, we usually see these cam buckle tie downs being used on pick up trucks, 1” cams are all over the place while 2” cams are being used in box trucks. Unlike cam buckle, ratchet buckle are much stronger, and 2”,3” and 4” ratchet buckles are used in industrial grade applications, such as heavy duty transportation, they have working load limit of 3,333lbs, 5,400lbs and 5,400lbs respectively, these assemblies have design factor of 3:1, thus the minimum breaking strength is 10,000lbs, 16,200lbs and 16,200lbs respectively.

So far we talked about tie down devices for flatbed trucks or similar transportation vehicles, we will see there are other kind of trucks, the typical one is box truck, and most of them have E Track installed inside the truck, for these rigs we use e track straps. By estimation, there are almost 80% trucks on the road are box trucks, so these e track straps are supposed to the most popular ones by volume. With 1,000lbs safe load  limit and 3,000lbs minimum breaking strength, e track tie downs are not as strong as flatbed tie down straps, It’s easy to understand that why e track straps are not as strong as regular ratchet tie down straps, inside the box truck the loads already have strong support, at least there is no risk of falling off, all the e track straps will do is to fixate the loads more than tie them down. You also have e track cargo bar, decking beam, e track tie off, etc. at your disposal, with e track ratchet straps you will be able to secure any kind of cargo , make the hauling experience more pleasant than ever , but remember that you can never be more careful when it comes to your precious truck and load , make sure your cargo are tied down properly all the time.

We already discussed the design factor of ratchet straps, it is 3:1 and for the record all this says is that safe load limit of tie down straps is 1/3 of it’s breaking strength, for comparison purpose we know that the binder chain has a design factor of 4:1, which basically says that for the chains the working load limit will be 1/4 of their breaking strength, which indicates that tie down chains are designed for tougher environment than tie down straps are in. The standard material of which tie down webbing is made is nylon webbing or polyester webbing, depends on different tie down applications. The typical application for nylon webbing is motorcycle tie down, while polyester webbing is ideal for tying down concrete pipes. When making the webbing, we have to take following characteristics in to consideration, the breaking strength, elongation, abrasion and the environment. When making tie down strap, manufacturer has to follow the recommendation of breaking strength and elongation requirements, when it comes to abrasion and environment, there are much more variations to be considered.