Corus extends condition monitoring at Scunthorpe plant

Scunthorpe, UK – Steel maker Corus is to extend its use of online vibration devices for condition monitoring at its medium section mill in Scunthorpe, which supplies railway lines and steel rail sleepers, as well as sections for the construction industry. The move followed a review,which led to the plant being designated a locked access area to comply with health & safety requirements.

The Corus plant, which has been running for over three years, houses one abrasive saw that cuts hot rails, and four cold saws. The two sections saw lines are equipped with one fixed and one movable saw per line.

Engineers had been undertaking basic plant condition monitoring on the saw lines for some time: maintenance engineers using portable patrol monitoring equipment to monitor the condition of the bearings in the motor and gearbox units that drive the friction saw.

“Access to this saw line was a real problem for us,” explains Chris Smith, the plant’s condition monitoring engineer. “We could only do checks on the equipment when the saw was idling, but this rather defeated the object of monitoring and assessing the condition of the bearings and other rotating components under real time working conditions.”

Access to the area is restricted by a Castell trapped key interlock safety system, which ensures that personnel cannot gain access to the locked gates surrounding the area until the power has been switched off. This makes it impossible to conduct vibration monitoring using hand held devices, forcing engineers to consider various online systems.

Following the use of Schaeffler’s FAG DTECT X1 online vibration monitoring system, which monitors the hot saw gearbox in the Beam Mill at Corus’ sister plant in Redcar, Teesside, the company decided to look at a similar system for Scunthorpe.

Due to the number of critical applications requiring continuous monitoring at the medium section mill, the company opted to use the FAG ProCheck online condition monitoring system. This provides enhanced network capabilities and can monitor vibration levels on critical rotating plant or machinery, including motors, drives, bearings, gearboxes, pumps and fans.

With recent failures of motors adding to the plant maintenance costs, Wayne Jackson, electrical maintenance engineer, at the Scunthorpe medium section mill says he is keen to extend his condition monitoring regime to other areas of the plant.

“We cannot afford the two to three months it takes for a motor to be repaired, nor do we like paying the repair costs which can be as much as £20,000 per motor … We can avoid the disruption to the process whilst at the same time being able to plan changes rather than react to them and to ultimately make better, more informed decisions.”