Split bearings on steel mill replaced in 3 days

FAG Industrial Services has successfully completed the replacement of large, split spherical roller bearings on a critical, 140-tonne steel mill converter - within three days

FAG Industrial Services (F'IS) has successfully completed the replacement of large, split spherical roller bearings on a critical, 140-tonne steel mill converter within three days.

FAG Industrial Services (F'IS) is the maintenance and condition monitoring services division of the Schaeffler Group, and successfully carried out this important maintenance work on the trunnion bearings on a 140-tonne steel mill converter at the ThyssenKrupp steel production plant in Terni, Italy.

While most of the 3,500 employees on the plant were enjoying their annual Summer shutdown in 2006, engineers from F'IS set about replacing the large, heavy, split spherical roller (trunnion) bearings on one of their two, 140-tonne high-grade steel converters.

The shutdown is normally used to carry out important maintenance work, including relining and modification of the two mill converters.

The ThyssenKrupp fitters initially dismounted the drive and bull gear (a toothed gear wheel that enables tilting of the converter) on one of the converters, then took the opportunity of calling in F'IS engineers to do some preventive maintenance on the FAG-supplied trunnion bearings.

Hermann Eussner, chief fitter at F'IS takes up the story: "Prepared down to the very last detail and perfectly organised, the bearing replacement was carried out according to schedule within three days".

The bearings on the converter are from the Schaeffler FAG range of split spherical roller bearings.

With an outside diameter of 1,180mm, a bore of 900mm and a weight of 800kg, these bearings are designed to withstand the high forces acting on the pressure ellipse of the loaded roller and the outer ring, which measures just a few square centimetres.

The bearings also have to withstand extremely harsh conditions - high operating loads, dirt and high temperatures.

FAG split spherical roller bearings are mainly used for applications in which the replacement of an 'unsplit' spherical roller bearing would require intricate additional work.

For example, where gearwheels or couplings have to be withdrawn, drives dismounted or shafts disassembled.

With split spherical roller bearings, assembly is simplified and mounting made easier, therefore the costs of production downtime, particularly on heavy plant and machinery, are reduced.

F'IS is also working closely with UK-based steelmakers to ensure that their production downtime is kept to a minimum.

The Corus Group steelmaking plant in Scunthorpe, for example, recently underwent major bearing replacement work.

Corus Northern Engineering Services (CNES) worked closely with F'IS to save at least five weeks of production.

The Scunthorpe plant uses three Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS) plant vessels, which convert molten iron from the blast furnaces into steel.

Each vessel weighs 1,300 tonnes, supported on two 1.75m diameter spherical roller bearings from FAG.

Each vessel is able to tilt to various angles up to 150degrees from the vertical during the process for charging and discharging purposes.

The arduous duty generates high local contact loads, which over time, generates high residual stresses in the tilt bearings.

As Ian Taylor, business development engineer for plant condition monitoring at CNES says: "The delivery lead time for bearings of this magnitude can be as long as 12 to 18 months, with plant downtime for a planned bearing change requiring three weeks.

The relatively high cost of the bearing becomes almost insignificant compared to the overall production outage costs.

By working closely with engineers from F'IS, we removed the existing bearings and fitted the new bearings.

This took just four days of the three-week planned outage, before the panels and screens were refitted, the supporting frame removed and the plant recommissioned".

Potential applications for split spherical roller bearings range from shafts supported by several bearings to bearing locations of restricted access, for example, on conveyor plants, belt drives, ships, rolling mills, ventilation systems and paper mills.

The F'IS range of services includes helping customers mount and operate machines; install and run condition monitoring systems; repair of rolling bearings and conduct analyses and study the causes of machine damage and faults; and the early detection of problems and failures on rotating plant and machinery.

For more information on the complete range of FIS condition monitoring and maintenance services, please contact FIS or visit the website.

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