Focus on R&D delivers after-market benefits

Continuous improvement leads to new split-seal design for ATOX mill grinding rollers – and to lower costs for existing mills.

In recent years, FLSmidth has invested in the expansion of its Dania R&D centre at Mariager, Denmark, which is the world’s largest experimental ground for cement- making technology. This is where we test new innovations on a major scale. Innovations that lead to new products and technologies – and that also allow our after-market customers to keep costs down by optimising existing equipment. A recent result of FLSmidth’s emphasis on continuous improvement is the development of an innovative new split-seal design for ATOX mill grinding rollers.

Grinding rollers including the split oil seal are a standard feature of all new ATOX raw mills (sizes 27.5 and up), which greatly reduces seal replacement downtime and helps ensure higher mill availability.

Company-wide competence centre
The FLSmidth R&D centre pools knowledge gained by FLSmidth departments across the company. The split seals are an example of this knowledge sharing. They were originally developed by our product specialists, and the Customer Services engineering department quickly realised that existing ATOX mills could also benefit from the redesigned seals.

“We’ve prepared conversion kits for ATOX raw mill sizes 27.5 and up,” says Morten Hansen, head of FLSmidth’s Customer Services engineering department. “The Customer Services sales force is taking a proactive approach to helping our customers evaluate the advantages of the new split seals. There are approximately 275-plus existing ATOX mills with the potential for seal replacement. We will contact each of these customers to provide individual ROI calculations, as we believe there is a clear cost-benefit rationale for converting to the split-seal design.”

Simplified procedure provides savings
In ATOX mills without the new split seals, replacing the inner oil seals requires days of maintenance and unplanned mill downtime due to roller disassembly. This often results in days of kiln downtime, causing costly loss of production and increased maintenance costs. The new split seal can be replaced inside the mill, without removing the grinding rollers. This simplified procedure eliminates a kiln stop and excessive loss of lubrication oil, as well as crane and workshop expenses. The new split seal requires the same frequency of replacement as before, but is a much faster, easier and less costly operation, which requires no special tools and can be done by maintenance staff on site.

For more information about the new split-seal design for ATOX mill grinding rollers, please visit www.flsmidth.com/customerservices.

Related links:
Learn more about the Atox split seal