IT’S ALL IMPRESSIVE: THE GYRATORY CRUSHER, THE BEVEL GEARS

Crushing plant in Panama

The Danish company FLSmidth want to be in constant dialogue with their customers in the mining and minerals industry to develop individual and pioneering solutions for better productivity and responsible and efficient use of natural resources. As the drive is the heart of the crusher, the bevel gear is one of its most important components, making gear quality crucial to the design and manufacture of reliable crushers. This means that FLSmidth want to use only the best and most reliable partners to supply those gears.

Working with ATA Gears, FLSmidth has achieved remarkable operative success in the power transmission applications of the mining sector – producing, for example, the new 63-130 gyratory crusher, which has a throughput of up to 14,000 tons per hour. The crusher itself weighs an amazing almost 500 tons and the diameter of the bevel gears delivered by ATA is also impressive, 2.4 meters. The shapes of the teeth, the meshing behaviour and materials have been developed over the years together with ATA´s Gear Doctors in close and highly professional cooperation.

Through the continuous cooperative development over the years, the new bevel gear design allows the installation of higher motor power for the same size of crusher, resulting in higher throughput rates. That helps FLSmidth’s customers achieve more efficient energy consumption without needing upgrades or new machines to achieve the same throughput. Moreover, the 63-160 gyratory crusher, which is among the world’s biggest gyratory crushers – if not the biggest – offers major savings in maintenance time and costs. Christian Wibbels, Head of Purchasing, Expediting & Inspection Germany at FLSmidth is very happy about the cooperation between his company and ATA Gears: “Thanks to ATA’s gear design, in service situations, the pinions can be assembled and disassembled without moving gear wheels axially. This feature has reduced assembly time of our gear drives by more than 50%. Also, downtime due to maintenance at mining sites has been significantly reduced.”

This is a shortened version of the original story published in the In Motion magazine 2023 issue. If you want to read more about ATA´s cooperation with FLSmidth or other stories in the magazine, you can request a copy from Tami Komssi by e-mailing tami.komssi(at)atagears.fi.