MOTORS
industrial solution. A
How an Armagh-based company
developed an innovative,
effi cient and safety-conscious
E quipment operators,
according to guidance
for the safe operation
and use of mobile jaw
crushers, may be subject
to multiple risks
including exposure to
dust, noise, whole body vibration and
being struck by objects ejected from the
crusher. WEG’s premier distributor,
Craigavon-based Technidrive, developed
an energy-effi cient automatic jaw crusher
unblock system using entirely WEG
products.
Commonly used in the quarrying,
mining, recycling of demolition waste and
chemical industries, jaw crushers are a
reasonably diffi cult application for systems
integrators, due to the large inertia of the
fl y wheel, cyclic loading and diff erences in
materials that customers feed them with.
This didn’t prove to be a problem for
Technidrive, which was initially
approached by a customer looking to
implement a new motor in their jaw
crusher machine. With over 20 years’
experience in industrial drives,
Technidrive used its expertise to meet the
demands of the project and exceed the
initial requirements. Using a combination
of quality WEG products, Technidrive was
not only able to improve the effi ciency and
reliability of the motor, but the effi ciency
and safety of the entire jaw crusher
system. WEG was asked to supply the
motor, control and alternator for the
project due to the quality, versatility and
energy effi ciency of its product line and its
technical expertise.
Crushing is an important process in
30 » JUNE 2020 » WWW.MADEIN.IE
turning rock into a useable product. Rock
enters the jaw crusher from the top of the
machine and gets compressed between
two surfaces — the fi xed and moveable
jaw. The rock will continue to be crushed
until it is small enough to fall through the
opening. Ensuring that the size of raw
material is appropriately matched to the
jaw opening, can alleviate blockage
incidents. This can be
achieved by removing
oversize product prior to
processing and careful
control of the crusher
feeder, however blockages
do still occur. To unblock
a crusher a plant must be
shut down and the system
must fi rst be isolated, but
despite these precautions a
crusher can still be a serious
risk to personnel, due to the
amount of kinetic energy
that is released during
unblocking.
Technidrive wanted to develop a system
that was highly energy effi cient and
crucially, eliminated operators from the
dangerous job of manually removing
blocked material from jaw crusher
machines.
Technidrive commenced this project by
carrying out power torque and speed
calculations to decide upon a suitable
selection of WEG electric motor and gear
units. The electric motor was selected
based on the power and speed and further
mechanical calculations were carried out
to ensure the motor shaft could cater for
the high radial loads the application can
impose. The WEG W22 motor was
eventually selected for its superior cast
iron frame, inverter rated windings and
insulated non drive end fl ange.
The next vital part of the system is the
control of the motor, which can
incorporate a soft start or variable speed
drive (VSD) to control the motor starting
speed or torque, for example. The VSD
model selected was a CFW11 WEG
inverter with built in soft programmable
logic control (PLC) functions. There were
several advantages to this selection,
including the standard DC bus chokes to
reduce harmonics. The inverter was
CRUSHING
VICTORY
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