Prevention of Bearing Failures in Slab Continuous Casting Machines

摘要

The integrity of the rolls cooling system in a slab continuous casting machine is necessary to a good operational performance and to the productivity of the entire plant. Lubricating grease deterioration and bearings failures result in costly stoppages and repairs. Formation of solid deposits in the system produce localized heating that ultimately results in grease deterioration and failure. The mechanisms of formation of these deposits and their effect on grease deterioration were identified and quantitatively characterized to understand the effects of piping corrosion, water treatment and strand temperature on bearing failures.The present study followed a systematic methodology to identify the contribution of equipment design parameters, operating parameters, and physical phenomena to the first causes of grease thermal decomposition and bearings failure. As the thermal decomposition of grease is fundamentally related to the heat supplied to it by its environment, the heat transfer problem was formulated and solved and our findings are presented in another paper in this conference. This paper focuses on the causes of formation of solid deposits in the cooling system leading to failure and their mineralogy which affects the type of solutions that can be implemented.