Schaeffler reconditions support rollers

A Schaeffler (UK) product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Oct 1, 2008

A French steel manufacturer is having support rollers reconditioned on a regular basis by Schaeffler UK's Reconditioning Centre, based in Llanelli, South Wales.

By opting to have clusters of support rollers regularly reconditioned rather than replaced with brand new rollers, Paturle, a medium-sized steel manufacturer based in France, is not only benefiting from extended service lives, but also from faster deliveries and reduced costs.

Paturle specialises in the production of cold-rolled steel strip.

The range of products includes surface-finished strip steel, quenched and drawn steels.

The company operates four rolling stands of different configurations in two mills.

There are 48 or 32 bearings per rolling stand.

The outside diameters of the support rollers are critical because they determine the surface of the finished strip material produced.

Six to eight support rollers form a cluster.

The surfaces of the support rollers and minimal deviation of the outside diameters are therefore critical to Paturle's production process.

Brian Fox, engineering manager at Schaeffler UK's Reconditioning Centre, said: 'When we receive a batch of support rollers, they are completely disassembled, washed, inspected, reground and then remounted, with a total section height tolerance of five microns per cluster.

Typical steps in the reconditioning process include disassembling, washing and then measuring all the components.

The amount of material to be removed by regrinding is then defined.

Once this has been determined, the raceway (outside diameter) is reground.

The outer rings and inner rings are then assembled and the unit greased.

The section height is then measured and the rollers are then mounted onto their shafts, with a total section height tolerance of +/- 2.5um.

The support rollers are then packed and shipped back to Paturle.

'The support rollers' service lives are extended significantly, in some cases up to double their original service life.

'We have the machines here at Llanelli to regrind the outer rings to extreme precision while removing a minimal amount of material.

'Compared to purchasing a new bearing, the quality of the reconditioned bearing is not impaired by the grinding process at all.

What is more, average costs are around 50 per cent of buying new, depending on the size of the bearing of course, and lead times for the customer are also reduced by around 50 per cent,' added Fox.

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