The sales of technology company SKF South Africa’s gear, grid and rigid couplings, for use on belt conveyor drives, have been “extremely good” this calendar year, owing to steady growth in the industrial and mining aftermarket sectors, says SKF power transmission product manager Frans Pienaar.

However, he tells Mining Weekly that the original-equipment manufacturer market experienced a significant downturn in the second quarter of the year and is still not as active as the company expected it to be.

Pienaar also points out that the larger-size SKF gear and rigid couplings – which are between 116 mm and 1 975 mm in diameter – are being used worldwide in various industries, including the mining, minerals-processing, oil and gas, food and beverage, pulp and paper, and metals sectors.

He points out that about two of the company’s SKF PHE 120GCR rigid couplings are being used at coal miner Sasol Mining’s Shondoni project, in Secunda, Mpumalanga.

“The couplings are specifically being used to connect the mine’s drive pulley on belt conveyors to its corresponding drive unit,” states Pienaar, explaining that this installation has also enabled the drive pulley shaft to be fitted with a mechanical backstop device.

“The backstop is fitted to an intermediate shaft, which is connected to a driven shaft through our torsionally rigid coupling. “The couplings selected for this application are exposed to 508 kNm, bored and keyed to accommodate the 420 mm shaft diameters,” says Pienaar.
He adds that SKF’s gear and rigid couplings are available in a range of configurations, with torque capacities ranging from 1 kNm to 6 760 kNm to accommodate bore diameters from 13 mm to 1.025 m.

“The SKF range of couplings can be customised to meet customer requirements, and material specifications can easily be altered for increased torque capacity, or for nonstandard configurations where there are space or mass restrictions,” Pienaar states.

SKF’s gear, grid and rigid couplings are manufactured in South Korea to strict quality-control standards.