Rapid turnaround on mill motors repairs

4th Quarter 2016 Shaft power components

Marthinusen & Coutts, a division of Actom, recently repaired two large mill motors for leading uranium producer, Rössing Uranium in Namibia. The starting cage winding on one of the motors had moved and rubbed against the stator winding, while on the second motor the stator winding was down to earth. This necessitated having both motors repaired at Marthinusen & Coutts’ facility in Cleveland, Johannnesburg.

Because no spare motor would be available, the first of the two 1586 kW, 3300 V, 187,5 rpm brush motors to be repaired was treated with the greatest urgency to ensure that it was returned to the mine as quickly as possible.

The repairs carried out on the two motors consisted of rewinding the stators incorporating use of a resin-rich winding system, overhaul of the rotors and complete replacement of the rotors’ electronic diode and synchronising hub. Application of the resin-rich winding system for the stator rewinds necessitated having to manufacture special customised press boxes for curing the cells. A critical part of this was ensuring that the dimensions of the cells were 100% correct so that they fitted into the core slots exactly. A coil reset jig also had to be made to manufacture the coils to the correct shapes.

Repair of the second motor was completed at the end of March. In addition to the stator rewind with resin-rich windings, the rotor was overhauled and the quadrants on a damaged damper winding of the rotor were replaced.

For more information contact Richard Botton, Marthinusen & Coutts, +27 (0)11 607 1700, [email protected], www.mandc.co.za

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