Gearbox upgrade keeps limestone quarry rolling

Heavy duty conveyors at the Dove Holes limestone quarry are being upgraded on a rolling programme: 10 Series G heavy duty helical gearboxes from David Brown Engineering have been installed

Heavy duty conveyors at the Dove Holes limestone quarry operated by global building materials company Cemex UK Materials in Derbyshire are being upgraded on a rolling programme that has already seen the installation of 10 Series G heavy duty helical gearboxes from David Brown Engineering.

The gearboxes are supplied by Jackson Power which has been working with the Cemex operations team as part of an on-going review of performance to increase productivity and reduce downtime at the quarry.

Dove Holes produces more than 3 million tonnes of crushed limestone aggregate per year and has dozens of conveyors, the longest running over a distance of more than 370 metres.

Each of the conveyors was originally equipped with a single Radicon worm drive gearbox supplied by David Brown.

The new David Brown units in sizes G14 and 15 are replacing 10, 12 and 14 inch gearboxes across a power-handling range of 30-75kW.

The Series G units offer similar ratios but are available on faster delivery than worm boxes, and offer substantial efficiency gains of at least 15% in terms of power usage.

They are being supplied with modified base plates to enable easy replacement and the positioning of the output shafts is also replicated in the new gearboxes.

Importantly in such a hard working environment, the new gearboxes have proved extremely reliable and so far, more than seven years after the installation of the first Series G on site there has not been so much as a single oil leak.

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