Reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective solutions are a must-have in the steel industry. Lubricants play a pivotal role in ensuring these key objectives are met. One of the leading steel manufacturers in India was looking at improving the performance of their billet casters to improve their line efficiency. They were facing challenges like unplanned shutdowns, lower bearing life, frequent relubrication, higher man-machine interactions and higher cost of operations.
Billet Caster Application Challenges
The billet caster–roll bearings are subjected to adverse conditions such as high radiation temperature, high water ingress, atmospheric moisture and dusty environments, heavy loads and ultra-low speed.
Due to the usage of generic greases for caster roll bearings lubrication by the user, the bearings were not able to attain optimal bearing life and there was a need to frequently re-lubricate the bearings to avoid bearing failures. This was due to the inability of generic greases to sustain higher radiation temperatures of above 170 ⁰C. The users were facing issues like grease hardening, which in turn led to unplanned bearing failures. With these challenges, the user was constantly in search of the right lubrication solution.
The right Solution
A team of experts from Klüber Lubrication probed the issue and after a detailed study with various departments, were fully able to analyze the pain points and introduced a holistic solution for the customer. Klüber Lubrication suggested the new technology product - Klüberplex HB 98 – 602 BH, this semi-synthetic integrated calcite technology-based lubricant was designed to operate under heavy loads and high temperatures.
With Klüberplex HB 98 – 602 BH the re-lubrication intervals increased from once in 12 hours to once in 3 days. This not only prevented man-machine interaction but also helped reduce grease consumption thereby making it safe, profitable, efficient, and sustainable.
Problems like roll jamming due to grease hardening were eliminated, thereby reducing the overall bearing failure rate by approximately 80%. The life of bearings at the entry and exit withdrawal segment and at the run-out table increased drastically, hence the overall bearing consumption at the billet casters also reduced drastically.
Enormous savings on bearing costs, labor costs and reduced costs for grease disposals were some of the other benefits that were accrued from this exercise.
However, the biggest saving for users was from the lower breakdowns and the increased machine operation time, this single factor increased their efficiency and added to their overall profitability.
The users of Klüberplex HB 98-602 BH are extremely happy with this new solution, as they were not only able to improve the profitability but also made the process safer, reliable, sustainable and cost-effective.
