New condition monitoring regime met with approval

By introducing a new regime of condition monitoring from scratch, a steel rolling mill has not only avoided a number of costly breakdowns but also gained a greater understanding of its plant and improved the perception of condition monitoring across the site.

Located at Skinningrove near Saltburn-by-the-Sea in Northern England, the plant is part of the Corus Group and manufactures hot-rolled steel profiles for a wide range of industries, including earthmoving equipment, materials handling, shipbuilding and mining. 

Monitoring of the six pairs of spindle support bearings on the two-stand reversing mill was previously carried out by physical inspection on routine maintenance shutdown days. This involved two craftsmen stripping down the bearing housings and manually inspecting the bearings. If no defects were found, the same bearings were then reassembled into the original housings and refitted into the mill. The entire process is both labour and overhead crane intensive. This task was done in rotation so that each bearing pair was inspected every six weeks.