Exciting projects are everyday work at Geha Laverman. But the replacement of these Ferris wheels made our hearts beat a little faster. Geha Laverman, in collaboration with partner HEKO-Ketten, passionately took up the challenge to breathe new life into these sprockets.
Heavy industry has many transport systems, often driven by motors set up in shadowy deep basements and caverns, where they run 24/7. Self-evident, almost perpetual motion, whose source is known only to maintenance engineers. Comes a moment - often after decades, not infrequently after half a century - when such a cogwheel breaks down or threatens to do so. As if the heart of the business paralyses.
Running sustainably into the distant future
Our client, a steel mill, boasting a nearly 270-metre-long conveyor system, with room for more than sixty, nearly 40-tonne, steel-coils, asked us to collaborate with its engineers in developing and realising a drive component: a sprocket-set of mega-proportions, designed in such a way that it would far exceed the estimated service life of the 'old' sprockets.
The original castings had come to the end of their valiant life. A highly wear-resistant and also low-maintenance replacement was sought.
Living room high
It took a while - after all, you don't deliver something like this in a week - but we lived up to our ambitions. It became a truly impressive production where nothing was left to chance. The wheels have a diameter of almost 2.5 metres - as high as many a living room - and weigh around 2,500 kg each. The wheels are constructed so that changing gears is now possible without dismantling the entire wheel. Previously, such a change would result in at least a week of downtime.
Geha Laverman delivered the wheels, according to an extremely tight schedule, completely mounted on the matching drive-turn shafts with bearing housings. Once on site, this combination, weighing over 6000 kg, could be hoisted in immediately and has been operating silently for some time now.
