Iron & Steel Mills

Climax Keyless Locking Devices provide steel mills a cost-effective and maintenance-friendly alternative to traditional mounting methods for gearbox applications.

Gearboxes that drive mills in the steel industry are typically coupled to motors using large gear couplings. The traditional mounting method for these couplings is a heavy interference fit which require expensive close tolerance machining, a heated hub for installation and removal, and use of a press or puller. As a result, heated hubs can lead to seal damage and premature bearing failure. When bearing maintenance is required, removal and re-installation of these couplings is labor intensive and expensive.

Using a Climax Shrink Disc to mount gear couplings provides a superior alternative to a traditional press fit method. Keyless locking devices achieve the same fit with much simpler and less expensive machining. Climax KLDs provide high torque, bending, and axial thrust capacities, eliminate axial movement during installation, and eliminate notch factors associated with keyways. In addition, shrink discs are less expensive and time consuming than sweat or press fit connections. Installation and removal of KLDs require the use of simple hand tools allowing for easy field serviceability. Continue reading “Keyless Locking Devices Provide Solution for Steel Mill Gearbox Applications”

Climax Keyless Locking Devices eliminate the use of keyed shafts required when mounting bull gears in mechanical steel stamping presses, providing a shaft-to-bore connection that is reliable, increased durability, and supplies infinite timing capability.

Bull gears are widely used in traditional stamping presses. After some time the bore of these bull gears will wear out and require maintenance. The typical maintenance approach is often lengthy and consequently affects production and profitability to the manufacturing facility. This process includes welding the bores to enable the plant to machine them back to the required shaft size and finally add a keyway.

In addition, the keyed shafting will oftentimes need to be repaired or replaced which can be difficult and time consuming. Climax provides an exceptional solution that eliminates the need for keyed shafts. Our keyless locking assemblies can be placed in the bore of the bull gear, to lock it to the shaft and provide the necessary torque capacity, while increasing durability, as well as supply infinite timing capability.

This keyless solution simplifies the machining required, allows for timing, and provides for infinite service life. When maintenance is required, Continue reading “A Solution to Simplify Maintenance in Traditional Stamping Presses”

Climax Keyless Locking Assemblies provide timing solutions for steel mill production lines providing a cost-effective and maintenance-friendly alternative to traditional keyed connections.

Traditional methods used to mount mechanical power transmission components in steel mills, incorporate the use of gears and keyways. After some time these keyed connections begin to deteriorate causing components to become out of sync, resulting in maintenance issues and downtime consequently affecting the production and profitability of the mill.

The hot rolled bar production line in a steel mill has gears in the transfer station for lifting the hot metal bars. These gear/lifting arm combinations demand strict sync tolerances in order for the transfer process to run smoothly.  Eventually as these arms pick up and transfer large quantities of very long steel bars, the keyed connection is compromised, causing the lifting arms to lose synchronization and production to be halted. This need to periodically re-align the gears and/or replace expensive keyed shafting is often very expensive, difficult, and time consuming. Continue reading “Timing Solutions for Steel Mill Production Lines”