Wiping the slate clean

Bearings are often the forgotten part of mechanical systems. With all the attention lavished on energy-saving drives, intelligent control systems and space-age sensors, the literal nuts and bolts — the actual mechanical bits and pieces that keep the moving parts of the system moving and the static parts still — can be relegated to the background. Until they fail, of course, at which point gears clash, axles buckle and the engineering manager starts rending his clothes.

Power cannot be transmitted to a moving part without a bearing to make everything run smoothly; and when your stock in trade is grit, rock and clay, keeping bearings running becomes even more important. At Belgium's Beez quarry, on the banks of the River Meuze, there is a constant battle between the nature of a quarry — to be dirty — and the need to provide its limestone products in a clean state.

The Beez quarry is 80m deep and covers more than 85 hectares. It produces high-quality limestone. About 1.7 million tonnes of rock are blasted out of the quarry every year, to be used in applications as varied as the dykes that keep the North Sea out of the Netherlands, to toothpaste and chicken feed.