Process industry

Measuring Oil Performance at a Stone Mill

Case Sibelco Nordic

Control of critical production machines is important because a sudden machine failure in continuous production would be a disaster. The performance of Sibelco Nordic’s oils has remained excellent leading to improved reliability and direct cost savings.

Start of the cooperation of Sibelco and Fluid Intelligence

Sibelco Nordic and Fluid Intelligence began cooperating at the Kemiönsaari plant at the end of 2018, and the Fluid Eye® Trend was installed in spring 2019. At the same time, the plant was considering switching lubricant suppliers, which made the timing to start ongoing monitoring of oil performance.

Results of working together

• Throughout the monitoring and analysis period (2019-), the condition of the oils has remained excellent and even improved

• Sibelco has avoided machine breakdowns in all critical equipment such as ball mills where Fluid's solution has been utilized

• With the help of continuous oil monitoring and analysis, Sibelco has been able to extend the oil change interval from what it was before. A longer oil life cycle has also brought direct cost savings.

Cooperation between Sibelco Nordic Oy and Fluid Intelligence Oy

Usually, as in this case, Fluid Eye® Trend is installed at the most critical stage of production. The biggest risk in continuous production would be a sudden gearbox failure. The risk is significant since in a plant focused on grinding rocks, there is a lot of rock dust in the environment.

In the case of Sibelco, the most important and critical pieces of machinery are the mills. At the Kemiönsaari plant there are four mills altogether. The first target was a fine grinding mill, which was used the most in production. This is a ball mill.

Fluid Eye® was installed to measure and monitor both the gearbox oil and the circulation of bearing lubricating oil of the fine grinding mill. The oils used in these differ from each other in terms of viscosity and some other properties, among other things.

The operating environment of a stone manufacturer is challenging for oils

When grinding stones, there is inevitably a lot of dust in the air. Rock dust never does good for the properties of the oil and can cause major problems in gearboxes, for example.

The harmfulness of rock dust, for example hardness, varies according to the stone material. Anorthosite consumes machines to a limited extent, but quartz is a real challenge for machines. It consumes the most parts inside the machines.

The deterioration in lubricating oil performance is reflected in wearing parts and eventually machine breakdowns. The most dust is on the bearings and wings. If the performance of the lubricating oil deteriorates, for example due to contamination, the machine will wear faster and the risk of machine breakdown during production will increase.

History of hardware failures

Before collaborating with Fluid, Sibelco Nordic experienced several machine breakdowns. For example, the gearbox of a bar mill broke 2-3 times soon after commissioning. The core problem was specifically related to oil performance.

“Oil quality control would certainly have prevented this. The machine went too hot. First the oil burned and then the bearings,” Plant manager Tomas Stenström says. Small and simple things escalate into serious problems but their observation and their absence is more complicated under field conditions.

Continuous production brings pressure

Control of critical production machines is important because a sudden machine failure in continuous production would be a disaster. The parts of the mill itself are expensive, not to mention lost production. The time lost in continuous production cannot be recouped - and of course, customers are not satisfied.

Another factor is maintenance staffing: Finding skilled workers on a tight schedule is also not always easy. Therefore, the personnel costs of repairs will increase significantly if there is a rush.

To estimate the cost of a sudden, unexpected machine breakdown, just the price tag for a bearing shoe is € 12,000. The exchange would take more than a week. The total cost would be estimated at around € 50,000 and in addition to this, the lost production, and the possible bitter disappointment of the customer.

Cost savings for Sibelco from lubrication oil

Fortunately, Sibelco's lubricating oils used for rod and ball mills are inexpensive. Even then, the company has made significant cost savings, because Fluid Eye® Trend has helped them grow the life cycle of these oils.

In the past, factory maintenance changed the bearing circulating oil and gearbox oil according to the maintenance recommendations of the equipment manufacturers. With the introduction of the Fluid Eye® Trend, it became clear that the condition of the oil remained good for much longer. In practice, performance monitoring led to a significant extension of the oil life cycle without compromising production reliability.

Changing oils even reduced the quality

A curious event from last year exemplifies well the new situation. Before, you would change oil to improve lubrication. But today, oil quality is maintained so that the change of oil can even reduce the quality.

This happened during Maintenance supervisor Robert Ekman’s vacation, when the oils were changed by blindly following the maintenance program, although the Fluid Eye® showed that the old oil was still good quality.

After the holidays, Fluid Eye® showed that the quality of the new oil was lower than before. The reason was also clear: In the factory, you can’t stop stone dust from entering almost every place. In this case, most likely, rock dust got into the new oil from the pumping equipment.

After the incident, the oil was monitored more closely. Nowadays, it is not necessary to change the oil before the seasonal maintenance of the machine, in which case it is taken apart and it is necessary to change the oil.

In the future, the information will also be in the control room

Now Fluid Eye® Trend alerts come to the maintenance manager and plant manager. In the future, operation will be integrated so that alarms will also enter the control room. Then the continuous monitoring of the oil would take place directly from the control room.

Sibelco Nordic Oy Ab, Kemiö plant

Sibelco's factory in Kemiönsaari was founded in the 1960s. The business of the then Lojo Kalkverk was transferred to the international Sibelco through various owners in the 1990s.

The Kemiönsaari plant has a total of 24 employees. The factory's annual production of mineral products is 100,000 tons. The factory's products are used by e.g. Finnish foundries, sanitary ware producers (e.g. IDO) and the glass fiber industry. Production is around the clock (24/7) and the industry season coincides with the autumns, when a lot is being built in Russia. When the waters freeze in January, the harbor and Russian export go to hibernation.

Plant manager Tomas Stenström started in his position in 2007. He worked for two years in maintenance and then became a plant manager. He has been responsible for the reconstruction and modernization of the Kemiö plant; the factory was quite worn out when he started.

Robert Ekman is the Maintenance supervisor.