Cosgrove is a hard rock quarry and earlier this year the team replaced their Primary Jaw Crusher. The Primary Jaw crusher is the first rock crusher in the overall process of converting exploded pit rock into the rock sizes required for concrete and road surfaces. The Primary crusher converts the ‘shot’ rock into 50-100mm rocks small enough to fit into the next stage crusher.
The existing crusher had been in service for ten years after being transferred hurriedly from a redundant plant upon a catastrophic breakdown of the previous unit. The crusher’s frame required repair of fatigue cracks at an increasing frequency which meant increasing down time. Misalignment of wear plate mating faces was breaking their mounting bolts and real time bearing vibration analysis was detecting a slowly worsening bearing vibration.
The failed unit from 2012 was shipped from Cosgrove to MCC Maintenance in Sunshine Melbourne where Mick Ciancosi and Boral Quarries Crusher specialist Brendan Shea completely refurbished the old crusher. All of the moving parts were replaced,the component mounting surfaces were straightened, realigned and then shimmed back to original alignments.
The onsite Cosgrove maintenance team planned and prepared for the swap out of the crushers. This included fabricating new inlet shroud walls to suit the subtly different profile of the top of the new crusher.
Project Manager Darren Carle and Quarry Manager Carl Beckman commended the team. They said the swap out was completed efficiently and safely and the planned schedule was achieved. This was important to sustain supply to customers within the limitations of the site’s inventory capability. The site works were achieved during a week of trying weather conditions that culminated in commissioning on a 41-degree Celsius day.
Well done to the Cosgrove team and MCC Maintenance on a job very well done.
