A Scrap Yard in The Southwest
The scrap yard was operating a 1300 ton Harris shear with a 5000 gallon reservoir. The shear was down 80 % of the time and failing pumps at the rate of greater than 75/year.
The problems were identified as:
- Excessive pump failure due to high contamination
- Excessive fluid contamination
- Poor quality oil
- Inferior quality pumps (cheap, because of frequent failure), 12 pumps were on the shear
Application specific analysis revealed:
- Because of the high failure rate, cheap oil and cheap pumps were the order of the day
- Because of cheap oil and cheap pumps and high fluid contamination levels the high failure rate was the order of the day.
- The hourly production value was >$500.00 per hour
- Fluid contamination level exceeded 24/22/20
- Because of high downtime two shifts were needed to generate <800 tons/day
- Very high water ingression rate
Application specific solutions were implemented:
- Two 60 gpm recirculating filter systems were installed
- The reservoir was drained, cleaned, sealed and filled with premium ashless fluid
- Pump wear was monitored for more than 6 months
Results:
- Need for second shift was eliminated
- Daily production for a single shift exceeded 2200 tons/day
- No pump failures during monitoring and only minimum wear recorded
- Downtime for all causes was reduced to less than 20
