Bearing up

摘要

The application of condition-monitoring technology has allowed a steel mill in north-east England to avert a number of costly breakdowns.rnThe Corus plant, at Skinningrove near Middlesbrough, manufactures hot-rolled steel profiles for a wide range of industries, including earthmoving equipment, materials handling, shipbuilding and mining.rnMonitoring of the six pairs of spindle-support bearings on the two-stand reversing mill was previously carried out by physical inspection on routine maintenance shutdown days. This involved two craftsmen stripping down the bearing housings and manually inspecting the bearings. If no defects were found, the same bearings were then re-assembled into the original housings and refitted into the mill. This process is labour and overhead-crane intensive. The task was done in rotation so that each bearing pair was inspected every six weeks.