Challenge/Solution Case Study:

Reducing Maintenance Costs and Downtime by the Redesign of an Extruder Drive Stand for Ceramics Manufacturer

Result

The design for a new drive stand arrangement reduced downtime on the primary clay extruder, ultimately decreasing maintenance costs and improving overall efficiency.

Challenge

The client’s primary clay extruder was plagued by routine maintenance problems associated with the drive system, shafts, and bearing arrangement, resulting in significant maintenance costs and downtime. The equipment was custom designed and manufactured in Japan, so working through a re-design with the OEM was not practical or cost effective.

Solution

The extruder has two independently driven shafts. The top, or pug mill shaft, feeds clay into a vacuum box and into the bottom shaft which actually extrudes the clay into dies that produce various size cylinders. The bottom shaft is driven from a reducer by a large spur gear. The shaft is restrained radially in plain bearings and axially by a ball-type thrust bearing.

The radial loads imparted by the spur gear produce significant wear on the plain bearings causing run-out of the shaft at the thrust bearing. This results in premature failure of the thrust bearing.

EFI Group developed the basic design of a new drive stand arrangement in order to eliminate the spur gear and drive the bottom shaft directly. This re-design incorporated a new bottom shaft reducer and reconfiguration of the top shaft drive arrangement to implement a jack shaft and couplings which allow for proper maintenance access to both motors and both reducers.

EFI Group also analyzed the bearing loads and worked with bearing manufacturers to determine a new arrangement for the bottom shaft that uses tapered roller bearings instead of the existing combination of brass plain bearings and thrust bearings.

Additionally, EFI Group evaluated stresses on the extruder shafts and determined changes needed for the new shafts.

Deliverables

General arrangement drawings of the new drive system.
Selection of a new reducer and the required shaft couplings.
Analysis and recommendations for a new bearing configuration to improve maintenance reliability.
Detailed design of the new drive stand, new shafts and bearing mounts.

We hired EFI Group to help us figure out a project and scope it, and I felt confident they would keep a keen eye on it. They had to deliver quickly and they did it well. They are especially good at project management when you don’t have the resources to do it internally. Reliability is the word I would use to describe EFI Group.

— Coatings Industry Professional

EFI Group is timely. We’ve had a lot of situations when we’ve been in a time crunch and they’ve responded very quickly. They are detail oriented and efficient. They’re a good group of people who also have a lot of strength in pre-engineering — the thought process to get to preliminary design and making sure we’ve investigated all the potential asks of a project to ensure we didn’t miss anything. They have great attention to detail up front which is very important to any project because having that detail-oriented deep dive into the pre-engineering phase sets the stage for the success of the rest of the project, making the process smoother and making it much easier to keep the project on schedule and on budget.

— Mike Quigley, Engineering & Maintenance Manager, Food Industry

I’ve worked with EFI Group for a while, so I know they have a good, knowledgeable staff. We know we’re going to get the results from them we expect. From my interactions with all the different EFI team members I’ve worked with, I know they have knowledge across many industries. Equally, I never have to follow up with EFI Group and, in some cases, they keep me on track.

— Ryan Fredsall, General Manager, Pacer Minerals LLC

We view EFI Group as a team that can dimensionalize our capability to execute projects. We can articulate what it is we want to do and they can take that input and run with it without much intervention from us. They’re able to move a project along independently and only engage us when it’s time to bring us up to speed or get more input to drive a project to conclusion. That’s one of the reasons I view them as an excellent contractor.

— Environmental Engineering Industry Professional

EFI Group has good engineers and good customer service. We know when we get an EFI engineer on a project, we’re going to a get a good job from them and it’s been a productive relationship for both of us — I genuinely like the people.

— Corporate Director, Project Management in Food & Flavors Industry

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Challenge/Solution Case Study:

Reducing Maintenance Costs and Downtime by the Redesign of an Extruder Drive Stand for Ceramics Manufacturer

Result

Challenge

Solution

Deliverables

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