The Timken Advantage
When your rolling mill equipment has an emergency, calling Timken is like calling the paramedics. Timken recently helped bring Ghent, Kentucky-based Gallatin Steel, a flat-rolled carbon steel producer, back to life after a period of downtime. The customer avoided further costly downtime in its rolling mill operations due to an emergency bearing repair and installation of a Timken predictive maintenance program.

Gallatin Steel employees heard an unusual noise coming from a shaft on a rolling mill stand that was critical to the mill’s productivity. With assistance from an on-site Timken representative, the noise was identified as a broken bearing cage, which was a result of high-speed and impact force upon a competitor’s two-row tapered bearing.

The bearing, which had been in service since the plant opened 11 years earlier, was removed and inspected, the cage was welded in the six places where it had fractured, and the gearbox was re-assembled. Timken also corrected the bearing clearance and made several other modifications to minimize any wear patterns that could occur after the assembly was mounted back in place.

To help Gallatin avoid future emergency repairs, Timken installed a StatusCheck™ condition monitoring device on the bearing to measure overall vibration. StatusCheck, a unique wireless system designed to detect and monitor excessive levels of vibration and temperature, now alerts Gallatin’s pulpit operator to vibration changes, indicating potential problems in the mill drive train. The results can then be evaluated with Timken’s on-site technical team, and further diagnostic testing may be required to understand the severity of the situation.

“Timken is an integral part of our overall preventive and predictive maintenance programs and has played a very valuable role in helping us identify potential problems before they actually became problems,” said Don Daily, president of Gallatin Steel. “I can’t say enough good things about the work Timken has done for Gallatin Steel, and I look forward to a long association with them.”