Customer Profile
A Large International Mining Equipment OEM for Ball and AG/SAG Mills.
Application
Open Gear Lubricant Spray System to service a Ball Mill with a gear width of 970mm
Challenge
The previously used lubrication system only allowed the monitoring of the air pressure to the spray valves and grease pressure in the mainline of the Dual Line lubrication system. Unfortunately, this type of system does not alert the plant operator if one or more of the eight dual line distributor valves are malfunctioning or blocked.
With a large gear set like this the lack of an adequate boundary lubrication layer could be disastrous leading to excessive wear and flank damage.
Lubrication Engineers Solution
Lubrication Engineers Australia redesigned the system to include the features of a Bijur Delimon DR-4 Hydraulic Reversing Valve with operation of the internal piston, monitored via a proximity switch, eight SDM Modular Dual Line valves which are adjustable from 1-10 cc. Each valve is fitted with a proximity switch to allow individual monitoring and a PLC is used to monitor all 12 inputs and 6 outputs.
The PLC, alarm warning lights, DR-4 Reversing valve and the Bosch modular air control which includes two air solenoid valves, one air pressure switch, two air regulators and lubricator are all housed in a stainless steel enclosure.
Results
The customer can now monitor the flow of lubricant to all the spray valves.
Additionally, the design allows for post air blast of spray nozzles after lubrication of the gear to remove residual lubricant.
As a result, this design of this system has now been adopted for all new and
refurbished open gear lubrication systems by the OEM
