Platinum Mine Significantly Cuts Costs by Switching to Pyroshield Lubricant

A world leader in mining uses various FLSmidth ball mills in their mines. These machines are large drums filled with heavy steel balls that crush rocks. These ball mills are equipped with automatic spray systems to lubricate the large ring gears inside. On 22 ball mills at two of their mines, they applied an open gear lubricant from a well-known international lubricant manufacturer. The problem was that this lubricant caused mechanical failures to occur too frequently. This significantly drove up operating costs. Experts from the American company Lubrication Engineers were brought in to find a solution.

Synthetic Oil for Extreme Conditions

As a solution to this problem, the experts recommended Pyroshield® Syn XHvy gear lubricant type 9011. This lubricant is a synthetic oil developed to provide lubrication under extreme conditions. It also offers protection for high-load and heavy-shock applications. This includes large open gear drives used in the mining and cement industries. Pyroshield 9011 contains Almasol® as an additive, which reduces wear and makes the oil more resistant to extreme pressure. It is environmentally friendly and contains no heavy metals.

Less Lubricant, Lower Operating Temperature

The mining company decided to start a trial on two of the ball mills that were causing the most problems. At these mills, gear replacements were often necessary due to pitting corrosion. To limit this somewhat, the gears had to be almost continuously sprayed with lubricant to keep them below the maximum operating temperature. After switching to Pyroshield 9011, this could be reduced to a short spray every 7 minutes, while the operating temperature dropped to even more favorable levels. This not only resulted in a significant lubricant saving of at least 75%. No more pitting corrosion was observed, and the two ball mills no longer experienced mechanical downtime.

All Ball Mills Switch to Pyroshield

With the positive outcome of the trial, the decision to switch all other ball mills to Pyroshield from Lubrication Engineers was quickly made. In collaboration with the asset manager of the mining company, efforts are now being made to improve lubrication on other machines and equipment as well.

Reduction in Electricity Consumption

Although energy consumption was not directly measured, it is highly likely that the decrease in operating temperature—and thus the reduction in frictional resistance—also results in significant savings on electricity use.