Repair of two cement mill gear units at a Belgian cement plant
Two planetary gear units serving tube mills at a cement plant in Antoing, Belgium, were taken to Brauer Maschinentechnik AG in Bocholt for repair. Since the mill building lacked the requisite lifting equipment, a steel beam structure was installed for removing the 47-ton gear units out of the machine hall. Before that, though, the gear specialists had to separate the two planetary stages in the installed state. The entire job, including removal and reinstallation, was completed during the plant’s four-week wintertime production pause.
1 Introduction
Numerous cement plants can boast of drivetrains with mechanical gearing that have been in service for decades. In many cases, a general overhaul would be desirable, but the prolonged downtime, or perhaps the lack of a good extraction option, makes it appear unfeasible. Consequently, repairs are often limited to in-situ mending and patching in order to fix acute damage and keep production going. Obviously, high quality is not always achievable, and the operational reliability of the entire drivetrain usually remains more or less limited. Frequently, though, the only way to ensure...
