Emergency primary crusher repairs completed over the Christmas period.

Jul 08, 2023

During the Christmas period QMS was engaged by two of the UK's largest granite quarries; Aggregate Industries Bardon Hill and MQP Cliffe Hill; to respond to critical breakdowns to carry out a complete strip, repair and rebuild on their primary crushers. The unplanned maintenance on the Fuller Traylor 54x74" Gyratory Crushers meant QMS had to respond instantly and deploy its resources at short notice. As the 54x74 model of crusher has a capacity of over 2000mt/h the importance of completing a repair quickly and efficiently on these complex machines was critical to both quarries.

After immediate inspections of the crushers were completed by QMS’ experienced team of engineers, it was identified that the crusher head had been spinning and the decision was made to continue the strip of the machines.

QMS engineers measured and checked all running components and identified that the bronze eccentric bushes and spider bushes on both crushers needed replacing. As QMS holds extensive multimillion-pound stock of aftermarket crusher spares the rebuild was able to continue uninterrupted by any delays that would have been caused by the manufacture of the required spares.

The process of stripping and rebuilding each crusher required the use of skilled engineers and a range of maintenance processes. QMS service engineers were able to remove the spider assembly, weighing 18 tons, from the crusher as they are all fully trained appointed persons and hold the necessary qualifications to work safely and competently on site. After removal of the worn spider bush, the spider bore was checked, and the new spider bush put in place utilising liquid nitrogen to shrink the spider bush to the required size.

The main shaft assembly, weighing 50 tons, was carefully lifted from the crusher and placed in the maintenance bay, where it was inspected for signs of wear and damage.

The inner eccentric bushing was removed from the eccentric tube with the aid of the overhead crane, the eccentric bore was measured and inspected for signs of wear and defects. The new inner eccentric bushing was placed in the cryogenics tank and cooled with liquid nitrogen. Once the inner eccentric bush had reduced in temperature, it was carefully lifted out and lowered into the eccentric tube and then allowed to return to ambient temperature before being secured with the fixing bolts.

Douglas Galbraith, Operations Manager at Bardon Hill Quarry said

"Though we work to eliminate breakdowns from our operation (and have succeeded in hugely reducing them), before Christmas we suffered a significant breakdown on our Fuller.

I just wanted to drop you a note to say thank you for your responsiveness, quality of work, technical approach and thoughtfulness in solving the issue.

Working through Christmas is a challenge in itself, but our teams dovetailed well and not only achieved our own planned shutdown works but successfully restored our Fuller to production in a timely manner"

QMS engineers are experts in crusher maintenance and repair. No matter who manufactured the original crushing equipment, QMS engineers have the industry knowledge and experience to undertake the work required. QMS customers can be assured that when they utilise QMS and their team of highly skilled and time served engineers that their crushing equipment has been repaired and assembled to the original manufacturers’ tolerances and specifications.

QMS understands that breakdowns need to be resolved as quickly as possible to get their customers back up and running.

QMS engineers carry out detailed inspections to look for potential hidden failures such as stress cracking, abnormal wear, excessive consumption, excessive vibrations, abnormal temperature and noise and provide customers with a detailed report highlighting any issues found, the actions needed to be taken and any maintenance recommendations.

QMS celebrates its 40th year in 2020 and has built a breadth of knowledge on an extensive range of crushing and materials processing plant. Their large state-of-the-art workshops are equipped with specialist equipment which enables even the most complicated of repairs to be completed in house.

Look out for a range of events throughout this 40th anniversary year for QMS who will also be exhibiting some exciting new products at Hillhead 2020.