SKF Three-barrier solution saves gold mine $1.4 million annually

 

Eliminating costly production losses due to conveyor pulley breakdowns

A gold mine in Indonesia was suffering from frequent breakdowns in the conveyor used for bringing up the ore from the mine. Typically, the pulley bearings only lasted for 8 months before breaking down due to heavy loads and contamination. As it takes 4 hours to change a bearing, every bearing failure was causing considerable unplanned production losses.

To minimize this downtime, the gold mine owners wanted to extend the service life of their pulley bearings to match the 2–3 years’ service life of the other bear-ings in the conveyor. In this way, all bearings could be exchanged at the same time, minimizing downtime and corresponding production losses.

 

3x longer bearing service life

The gold mine owners found their solution in the contamination-resistant SKF Three-barrier solution. With a sealed SKF spherical roller bearing, an SNL 3048 housing complete with taconite seal and an end cover, the SKF Three-barrier solution triples the service life of conventional open pulley bearings with labyrinth seals. In addition, the SKF Three-barrier solution is virtually relubrication free.