The end-user purchased the complete new SAG mill for the gold mine from a South African project house. The application presented a number of challenges which prompted the project house to approach SKF for assistance.

SKF’s turnkey solution included South African designed bearings and sleeves complete with custom-designed heavy-duty pinion housings. SKF customised the housing assemblies to include an uprated cap bolt and housing shell thickness to ensure that the housings are able to withstand severe cap loading on drive train A and B for increased lifespan and improved uptime for the end-user. The scope of work also called for the supply of a spare pinion.

“To provide additional protection to the bearings from contamination ingress we incorporated special custom sealing arrangements to customer specific requirements,” adds Storm.

SKF’s solution also extended to a customised IMX-S based solution for on-line condition monitoring and analysis. IMX-S was rebuilt into an IP66 rated panel complete with a dust canopy. Two IMX-S units were supplied to monitor both drive train A and B of the 12MW mill. Storm explains that the system provides Modbus RTU to Modbus IP/TCP conversion for real time integration and asset status feed to the end-user’s control room.