INNOVATION INTELLIGENCE 26/10/06 12:59 pm
INNOVATION INTELLIGENCE
Reducing the fatigue
life of a girth gear
Dirk van Dyk* discusses an intelligent gear system, which
addresses the problem of operational gear mesh
misalignment more successfully
T
he use of horizontal rotating mills is
often under challenging and complex
operating conditions. As a result,
failures can occur which even specialist
engineers struggle to explain.
Fig. 1 shows misalignment damage on a
girth gear driving a ball mill. The failure
mode is typical of other types of horizontal
rotating equipment and of the situation
regularly encountered in the mining industry.
The girth gear is the most critical component
of the mill drive system because of its cost
and the lead-time involved in replacement.
Adequate maintenance is essential for the
economical operation of a mill over an extended
period. Common diagnostic techniques
include: vibration analysis on the mill pinion
bearings, main reduction gear box and main
motor; oil analysis of the main reduction
gear box; spray pattern analysis on the girth
gear; stroboscope inspection of the girth
gear teeth during operation and temperature
measurement across the face width of the
girth gear. Annual shutdowns are planned
where non destructive testing techniques
such as magnetic particle inspection are
performed on the girth gear teeth to identify
possible cracks. The gear teeth are also
visually inspected for abnormal and distinct
wear patterns.
Over many years of onsite girth gear
inspections, David Brown staff have found
that the most common failure mode is
surface distress or ‘pitting’ of the gear teeth,
where the pitting is biased to one side of the
gear. This is an indication of misalignment
between the gear teeth of the mill pinion
and girth gear.
Worryingly, in most instances of failure, all
of the above maintenance techniques had
been adhered to, and therefore the failure
mode could not be explained in this way. In
such instances the girth gear is often turned
*Dirk van Dyk, Pr. Eng, is Engineering
Manager for David Brown Gear Industries,
South Africa. www.davidbrown.com
42 International Mining NOVEMBER 2006
Page 2
around on the mill and run on its back flank.
In order to maintain alignment of the
girth gear and mill pinion, industry standard
practice is to measure the temperature
difference across the face width of the girth
gear. The David Brown standard is a
maximum temperature difference (DeltaT) of
6°C across the face width of the girth gear.
In the absence of any better method to
calculate misalignment, most mill users have
employed this standard. The benefits of the system are two fold.
Studies carried out recently by the David Firstly, it enables the correction of gear mesh
Brown team suggest that there is a far more misalignment to reduce face load distribution
accurate and sensitive method to calculate issues and prevent the most common gear
misalignment. The temperature difference failure mode – surface distress and face pitting
has a fundamental error because one end of of the gear teeth as described above.
the mill pinion is free and therefore subject Secondly it detects excess loading or overload
to convection cooling, while the drive end is situations during regular gear operation to
connected to the main gear box and enable corrective operational action to be
therefore heated by conduction and made before any damage occurs.
radiation from the main drive. For a typical IntelGear has three component modules.
mill application, the soaking time of the mill The electronic gear alignment measurement
system is significant, due to the weight of module accurately measures alignment of
the pinion of the gear, which can therefore gears based on gear tooth root stress
lead to ‘false’ temperature gradients across measurements during normal operation. The
the face width of the gear. electronic torque measurement module
This method is also time consuming monitors gear loading based on shaft strain
because of the heat inertia of the girth gear gauge measurements to measure loadings
and pinion and the time it takes to detect a during normal operation. Data can be
temperature difference after an transferred by wireless and GPRS technology
adjustment has been made.
David Brown has developed IntelGear – Fig. 1. Misalignment damage to a girth gear
a robust gear alignment and
torque monitoring system
that can be used with ‘in
service’ gear drives to
improve reliability and
maximize productive
uptime. With a continuous
electronic monitoring system
that checks gear alignment
and also detects in service
gear loading, it is ideal for
low speed, high torque
applications with variable
loading conditions that are
typical.
INNOVATION INTELLIGENCE 26/10/06 12:59 pm
Fig.2
Figs 2, 3, 4 and 5: Readouts from IntelGear
Fig.4
for remote monitoring on or off site.
A recent application of the IntelGear
technology is on the coal pulverizing horizontal
ball mill at a coal power station in South
Africa. Here the measurement system was
placed on the mill pinion which meshes with
the mill girth gear.
Analyzing the output from IntelGear a
number of characteristics of the gear in
operation can be observed. Fig. 2 shows a
root gauge trace over two full revolutions of
the shaft and the resulting peaks and
troughs show the variation in stress as the
gear turns. Using an iterative process, an
alignment will be achieved which displays
minimum amplitude of the stress peaks. The
data collected from this mill demonstrates a
high level of sensitivity and interestingly the
Page 3
Fig.3
Fig.5
detail is such that it demonstrates the mis-
alignment as well as positive features of the
girth gear design itself. Fig. 3 shows both a
misalignment issue and a feature of the
girth gear design. The face load distribution
over the width of the gear face can clearly
be seen: the double apex in the strain gauge
readings reflect the Y-section construction of
the girth gear rim, the most durable design
for ensuring even loading across the gear
face when correctly aligned. It also shows
that one apex is higher than the other – a
sure sign of misalignment.
Finally figs. 4 and 5 show readily under-
standable results from the same installation
before and after realignment. On the right
the strain gauge peaks have effectively been
removed and the loading across the face
11/06
width has been balanced: gear alignment
has been successfully optimized.
An important point to note is that this
technology, although demonstrated here on
mining mill drives, is readily applicable in any
application requiring a large, low speed,
high torque gearing solution, where typically
traditional forms of condition monitoring,
such as vibration analysis, often do not
provide sufficient warning of an issue arising.
IntelGear not only provides excellent visibility
of misalignment but also identifies operational
loading issues. This enables operations to be
modified to optimize equipment productivity,
and with GPRS or wireless technology, it also
ensures that it is a practical solution to mon-
itoring and managing a number of assets
onsite or even remotely. IM
NOVEMBER 2006 International Mining 43