2010
A large Midwestern steel mill was experiencing excessive downtime due to frequent spindle repair and replacement on their hot strip mill roughing stand drives. The roughing mill work rolls require extremely high torque to compress/reduce 10" thick automotive quality heated steel slabs down to 1"- 2" thick.
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Paul Konkol, Business Unit Manager at Ameridrives Couplings describes the benefit of keeping manufacturing drawing data on older plant, in this case a gear coupling in a rolling mill.
A challenge many plant engineers face when addressing large, high-horsepower processes is where to turn when replacements or upgrades are needed. Many metals processing, mine operations, power plants and similar facilities in North America have core processes designed and built 50 or more years ago.
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The original U-joints installed in this demanding application featured split-flanged yokes. The driven (segment) ends of the U-joints pass through the sidewall of the segment frame and position within 12" of a heat/water wall. The tight space constraints did not allow full access to the roller end of the U-joints. This resulted in mounting bolts that could not be tightened to the torque specifications.
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At an integrated steel mill in the Midwest, the slab caster is more of a tortoise than a hare. Segment rolls on the curved roll section that move the steel slabs, rotate at a speed of only 8 RPM (5ft./min.). But it's the reliability of the motion, rather than the speed, that wins the race to productivity. Improvements to the slab caster at this facility are yielding positive results by reducing costly downtime in the harsh environment of this 24/7 operation.
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