Kop-Flex AK Steel Solution

A Michigan-based steel manufacturing facility installed a new reducer on one of its roughing mills due to damage within the existing reducer. The mill was concerned that the loads transmitted through the gear reducer may have exceeded design limits. In order to prevent damage to the new reducer, they desired to know what the mill’s typical operating loads are.

Kop-Flex^® Solution

Perceptiv installed torque monitoring equipment on Roughing Mill 1 and Roughing Mill 5 to monitor live torque as the mill operates. The collected data reflects transient (occurring very fast) torque spikes during production. These transient torque spikes may only last milliseconds but can cause damage to equipment and components downstream in the drive train. Additionally, after the new gearbox was installed, the customer requested that the mill continue to be monitored for a period of time to confirm loading of the new gearbox does not exceed the torque rating of the roughing mill.

Estimated Benefit

The data provided to the customer shows the magnitude of any torque spikes that the mill equipment is subjected to during the production of the steel slabs. With this data, the customer can be better equipped to make any necessary changes either to the process or equipment to lower the possibility of future damage or failures leading to production downtime.  

Available Perceptiv Solutions