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Did you ever start work on your car only to find a simple part that requires routine maintenance needs special tools, major disassembly, and a degree in physics to replace?

Recently I needed to change a headlight and found you need a one-of-a-kind tool and remove half the grill to change it. A headlight isn't exactly a part you would expect to last forever. It made me wonder if the engineer who designed the vehicle ever had to work on it. Probably not.

Maintenance Friendly Design
I know from my experience at Gundlach that even a big, heavy roll crusher can be designed to be maintenance friendly. We've been designing-in easy maintenance ever since T.J. Gundlach built his first crusher. We knew we better make it easy to maintain because T.J. himself might be the one who went into the field to work on it.

Roll Crusher Wear Items
From day one of a new crusher design concept, our engineers look out for the items that will wear, that will need routine maintenance, and that may be compromised during other than normal use. In the case of roll crushers these items include rolls, bearings, shafts and the connection of the unit to feed chutes and discharge chutes.

Rolls that can be removed via a coupling mounted design without disturbing bearings and drives, is a major savings design (and a Gundlach exclusive). Older and harder-to-operate-on designs use thru shafts or rolls that are integral to the shafts.

When the rolls wear they should be able to be changed out quickly.

Segmented rolls tried to overcome this shortcoming, but the cost makes them a questionable alternative to a good removal design.

The Easy Way to Change Crusher Rolls
The simpler and less costly way is to allow for the housing to be split so that the sections that need to be removed can be moved without disturbing the feed or discharge chute connections.

Then, using a coupling mounted roll design (remember Mr. Gundlach on a cold, wet, night), where the shaft couples to the roll, these connections can be easily unbolted and the rolls removed.

We Even Supply the Removal Rail
Gundlach also supplies the roll removal rail to roll out crusher rolls. This is all done without the need to disturb the main bearings or drives.

A normal roll change out can be done in 4-8 hours depending on operator experience and size of unit.

Maintenance-friendly design sounds so straight forward and obvious. Sadly, as many maintenance people can tell you, maintainability too often seems to be the forgotten end of the equation. You purchase a unit one time, but you have to maintain it for the lifetime of the machine.

Maintenance an Important Part of the Cost Calculation
Calculating your equipment cost naturally starts with capital cost. But the equation isn't complete until you considered its ability to do the job for the next 30 years and the cost and aggravation to maintain it. It's not all that hard to design maintenance friendly equipment, but it does take a level of awareness and commitment that seems to be missing with some manufacturers. Are you listening, Detroit?
 
Mike Hamby
Vice President Sales & Service – NAFTA
Gundlach Equipment Corporation
www.gundlachcrushers.com

At Coal Prep 2009 I saw tangible evidence that coal fired electric power generation may be another of those recession-proof industries. Like the food and pharmaceutical industries covered in part 1, electric power demand continues to fuel sales for industrial equipment makers.

Attendance at this year's show is estimated by the Coal Preparation Society of America to be up 15% over last year. They ran out of exhibit space in the main hall this year, and dozens of late comers were setup in the entrance outside the hall.

Although electric power was not one of the top 50 recession-proof industries listed in the Resume Bear article, turbine generators were listed as number two. This is what Resume Bear had to say about that industry, which largely holds true for power generation as well:

One defining trait of recession-proof industries is that they are often not dependent on consumer demand. That is, the industry in question produces something that is essential to business operations or things that have little or no bearing on consumer spending. Turbines and turbine generators are an excellent example of this, boasting 6%, 12%, and 2% growth during 1990, 2001, and 2007.

Electric Power and Coal
Lee Doyer, Vice President - Sales and Marketing, Pennsylvania Crusher Corporation told me that the utility and energy areas tend to weather recessions a lot better than other sectors.

"People still turn the lights on every day," he said, "and they still need electricity to run their computers and power their homes and businesses."

Pennsylvania Crusher exhibited their Mountaineer Sizer at the Coal Prep show. The sizer is used for primary and secondary sizing of coal at the mine. Pennsylvania Crusher is also a major supplier of reversible hammermill crushers used by electric power utilities and the Coalpactor coal crusher,  designed for fluid bed boiler power plants

Mike Hamby – Vice President Sales & Service – NAFTA at Gundlach Equipment Corporation said that both market demands and environmental concerns have coal producers looking to improve their processing to get more value from the coal they mine.

Gundlach was exhibiting their 4040D two-stage four-roll crusher, which takes feed up to 24" x 0" for product output of 2" x 0" and a capacity of 1000 STPH.

Hamby said he is also seeing more interest in technologies that employ lesser grade coal that once had little commercial value, such as crushing and pelletizing coal. Another example is the crushing of lower ranked coals such as lignite for coal gasification. These applications require coal sized  from to 6 - 3 mm, or less, which can be accomplished with Gundlach's Cage-Paktor cage mill. 

Co-firing Biomass and Coal
On the evening before Coal Prep's start Ted Gentile, International Sales Manager, Jeffrey Rader Corporation, gave a presentation on technologies used to feed dual fired coal and biomass boilers.

He described both mechanical feed systems and direct pneumatic injection systems that can be used to retrofit existing PF Wall Fired Utility Boilers and new Fluidized Bed Boiler Systems optimized for biomass and other diverse fuels.

Gentile told me that while dual fired boiler systems are new to the United States, his company has extensive experience building these systems in Europe. For more on feeding biomass into boilers see Gentile's recent blog article, Biomass Boiler Feed Systems Gain Global Acceptance.

At Coal Prep, Jeffrey Rader exhibited is electro mechanical vibratory feeder for coal and mini-mill crusher, which is used in mines and at prep plants.

Don Dunnington
Blog Moderator