Notes on a Mill Gear Failure

Prepared by Brenton Smith, Director Risk Engineering, IMIU Ltd

Background
The mill is >25 years old but the gear is around 12 years old and hence can be regarded as being in its mid-life. It is a 5.5m (18ft) diameter x 8.5m (29ft) long ball mill driven by a single pinion and girth gear. The pinion is driven by a slow speed 4.4MW motor that operates at around 80% of rated load, i.e. the gear is not overloaded. This is one of four ball mills that are downstream of two SAG mills in this particular concentrator. The concentrator produces a copper:gold concentrate. Annual sales are almost USD2billion. When the ball mill is offline the overall loss of production is around 20%, which equates to a loss of revenue of around USD1million/day. Prior to the failure, no significant cracking had been detected on the girth gear during the routine inspections. The routine inspections included cleaning and crack testing of random teeth on the girth gear that were presented each time the mill was stopped during a reline. About four teeth at a time could be cleaned and inspected through the inspection door above the pinion. Within the previous 12 months, numbering of the gear teeth had been introduced so that records could be kept of the actual teeth that were checked during the routine inspections. There had been some spalling on the teeth probably as a result of slurry ingress. The mill is shutdown every month for typically 12 hours while maintenance work is done on the feed chutes, cyclones etc. Inspections of the mills were also done in this time. The alignment of the pinion to the girth gear, as determined by IR thermography, was good and has been for several years. The alignment is checked monthly. There had been some water and slurry ingress events on the gear prior to the failure. About 12 months prior to the first observation of a failure symptom, there had been two ingress events of water into the girth gear guard. The process water in this plant is fresh with a TDS in the potable range. In the month when the first observation of a failure symptom was made, there had been a major slurry spill at the mill but it is not known if there was in ingress of slurry into the girth gear.

The Failure
As will be described, the failure was a progressive failure that occurred over a period of around eight weeks between the first observation of a failure symptom through to the mill being stood down for an extended period while repairs to the gear were made. The word failure is used to describe the point in time when the decision was made to stand down the mill. This was an unexpected and unplanned event and hence can be classified as a breakdown. About eight weeks prior to the failure, minor vibrations were detected coming from the girth gear guard. This was the first indication that a failure may be underway. The vibrations were detected by persons standing near the girth gear of the mill. The vibrations were intermittent and were noticed to occur for a very brief period with each revolution of the gear. Initially it was thought that the cause was probably the slinger ring coming adrift and making contact with each revolution. This is not an infrequent occurrence on mills. The vibrations were persistent, and did not appear to become worse, but they did not diminish either.

On the monthly shutdown following the time when the vibration was observed the three or four teeth available through the inspection door at the pinion were cleaned and inspected visually. No damage was evident and the lubrication regime appeared to be good, i.e. there was a good film of grease over the teeth. A month later there was a major planned shutdown and the girth gear guard was removed as part of the work to identify and repair the suspected fault that was causing the intermittent vibrations. It was at this point that the failure of the teeth was observed and the mill was taken offline for an extended period to repair the teeth.

Details of the Failure

When the lubricant was cleaned from the teeth, extensive cracking on one end of the drive side of every tooth was immediately apparent. There are 272 teeth in this gear. The cracking was at the drive end of the gear (nearest the motor) but due to the good alignment between pinion and girth gear this is not thought to be significant. The extent of the cracking can be seen in the two photographs below.

General view of the girth gear teeth. Salient observations include: 1. There is a good film of lubricant on the flank of the tooth in the foreground that is yet to be cleaned off. The good film is also evident on the tips of the teeth in the background 2. The cracking is extensive with a length of around 150mm. The cracks are deep enough for lubricant to accumulate in them and weep out under the action of the low viscosity fluids used for cleaning.

The extent of the cracking can be seen on this tooth. This is more than just an isolated single line crack. It is evident that wholesale failure of each tooth is underway. Apart from the cracking there is not much other damage on the tooth face. The level of damage/marking on the tooth is not unusual for a mill girth gear of this age. If the mill had continued operating with a similar level of damage on each tooth then there can be no doubt that large chunks of one or more teeth would have broken away from the gear. With all teeth being weakened to a similar extent, there is a strong possibility that when the first tooth failed the effect of debris falling into the mesh of the pinion and girth gear, combined with an immediate increase in stress levels in the neighbouring teeth, would lead to the failure of neighbouring teeth and the failure of the girth gear would have been catastrophic, i.e. the mill would not have operated again until a replacement gear was fitted. This level of cracking had occurred in the previous four weeks. Fortunately the mill was taken down for a planned shutdown at this time. It is not unreasonable to speculate that catastrophic failure of the gear would have occurred within the next two weeks if the mill had not been taken offline at this point. The only speculation is about the timing of the failure. Some would speculate that the breaking of the first tooth would have occurred within days, because once failures of this extent occur, the rate of propagation of the cracks tends to accelerate as a result of decreasing cross-sectional area of uncracked metal and the stress concentration that is associated with the cracks.

The Repair
The mill was shut down immediately and the cracks were ground out on every tooth. This took 35 days during which production was down around 20%. Experts were flown in to provide additional manpower and equipment for the grinding of the cracks. Magnetic particle testing was used to ensure that the roots of the cracks were fully ground out. The mill re-commenced operations and about two months later it was stopped again in a planned outage and the girth gear was taken off and turned over so that the former cracks, which were on the side of the tooth with tensile stresses, would now be on the side with compression stresses. The downtime for this planned outage was 10 days. A new girth gear was ordered and will be fitted when it arrives. This will require another planned shutdown of 7-10 days. This will bring the total downtime to 52-55 days during which the loss of production was 20%. The lost revenue will be approximately USD55million.

The volume ground out of this tooth can be seen. typical for all teeth.

This volume was

The Cause
The cause of the cracking was determined to be a gap appearing at the root between the two teeth on either side of one of the two joins in the girth gear. The gap measured between the two halves was 0.2mm wide at the root of tooth where the join occurred instead of being zero. The following photos are presented for explanation.

Two halves of a spare girth gear can be seen here. The timber is covering the machined surfaces on the teeth around the circumference, and also two large flat surfaces where the gear halves join. This is for a mill that is much smaller than the mill on which the gear failed. The installed power for this gear was 1MW only.

View of the join for the gear half. Note the very large flat area that that has 10 bolts that have very high torques applied to ensure that the two halves are brought together and the correct geometry of the gear occurs after they the two halves are joined. This gear is a double helix and hence there is a V at the root between the teeth on either side of the join. The gap between the two halves at the root of the gear teeth should be zero. The gap occurred as a result of corrosion occurring on the face of the two halves, which may not be completely closed (zero gap) across the full width of the joining faces. The corrosion products gradually forced apart the two gear halves at the join to create the 0.2mm gap at the root of the teeth. As stated previously the lubrication film on the girth gear appeared to be good. However, as is not uncommon in girth gears, there had been occasional ingresses of slurry and water into the girth gear. This would be considered as almost being normal for a gear in mid-life although in the 12 months immediately prior to the failure there were at least two water ingress events and possibly a slurry ingress event. The gap caused the regular intermittent vibrations that were initially observed. The cracking of the gear teeth was caused by the increased stress on the gear teeth as a result of them no longer being in correct mesh with the pinions. They were fatigue cracks caused by cyclic overloading.

The Consequences
The company, and its insurers, were both fortunate that the cracks were discovered before the first tooth broke, and catastrophic failure of the gear occurred which is almost certainly the inevitable result if a tooth had broken. Breakage was the inevitable result if the stress relieving by grinding was not done, and also if the gear was not reversed. Hence the damage to the gear was gradual rather than sudden and catastrophic. The total of 52-55 days resulted in a loss of revenue of USD55million.

The delivery time for the girth gear after the failure was quoted as 30 weeks. If the mill gear had failed catastrophically causing it to be stood down for this period then the loss of revenue would have been USD210million.

The Surprises
The surprises for me (and also the maintenance personnel onsite) were: 1. The rapid progress of the cracking once it commenced. I have never seen the rate of crack propagation as anywhere near as rapid as what occurred in this instance. The cracking went from none being visually evident through to imminent failure in just four weeks. 2. The effect of having a gap of just 0.2mm between the faces at one of the girth gear joins. This gear was not loaded near its maximum and alignment was good but the increase in the maximum tensile stress on the flank of each tooth each time they were engaged by the pinion was obviously well above the design limit.

Lessons Learned
1. If regular intermittent vibrations occur then it may be more than just a slinger ring or grease seal that is catching on the guard. Include measuring of the gap at the joins in the girth gear as part of the investigation. 2. Measure the joins in the girth gear at least annually. This is easy to do with feeler gauges and should be zero at the root of the two teeth on either side of the join. It may be more than zero back from the root of the tooth. However, the gap should not be growing. 3. This is just another reason for keeping water and slurry out of the girth gear. 4. Carry a spare gear. At this location the total downtime could have been restricted to just 10-14 days for the installation of a new girth gear once the initial cracking had been found. In countries where access to experts for changing gears is good, the time to replace the gear should be 7 days and is very unlikely to exceed 10 days. In this case, access was not as good and was hampered by visa restrictions etc. Hence the estimated downtime should not have exceeded 10-14 days instead of the 52-55 days that actually occurred. It is also vastly superior to the 210 days of downtime that could have occurred while waiting for a replacement gear. 5. Relying on regular testing for cracking and purchasing a replacement gear when required may not always prevent long periods of downtime. In this case the rate of growth of the cracks was very rapid and catastrophic failure was only days away. Most ball mills now operate for more than four weeks between routine shutdowns. 6. The gear teeth accessible through the inspection door should be cleaned and at least visually checked on every routine shutdown.