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We offer valves forprecision processes -and demandingapplications

Our valves fulfill the highest of standards and are designed for many years of safe and reliable operation. Our service specialists regularly check, monitor and maintain all relevant system components -depending on what has been agreed. Our modular framework agreements offer you individual service and spare parts concepts. And we even go one step further. We additionally check systems for efficiency in order to reduce operating costs and increase productivity. For example, with theSES System Efficiency Service.

ZTS GATEVALVE

GATE VALVE AKG-A/AKGS-A

STAALWEDGE GATE VALVEAKDS/AKD NORI500 BOA -H

Contact our dedicated Valves Sales Engineers for all your Valve requirements 011-876-5600 or email us info-za@ksb.com KSB Pumps and Valves (Pty) Ltd • www.ksb.com/ksb-za Your B-BBEE Level 1 Partner

Best lubrication practises will extend bearing life and optimise machine/plant availability

Bearing in mind that 50% of all bearing failures are due to incorrect lubrication or contamination, SKF highly recommends that best practices, or at the very least, standard practices be followed when it comes to bearing fitment, removal and alignment methods. This will contribute to massive time and cost savings through extended machine life cycle, optimised plant availability, improved uptime and productivity. And there are environmental benefits too.

The cost of lubrication products (oil or grease) is regrettably often disregarded as they are categorised as consumable products together with cleaning equipment and fluids. Even a small plant can consume as much as 80 tons of grease per annum. On bigger plants lubrication spend can easily run into the millions and if correct lubrication methods are not followed, wastage and related costs remain undetected. So there is enormous potential for savings here by simply applying best practices and controlling grease consumption. Smart lubrication procurement and utilisation can significantly reduce costs; in some cases as much as 50%! There is an incorrect assumption that a bearing must be filled with grease until clean grease is pushed out the other side of the unit. In other words a bearing must be full of grease to be properly lubricated. Unfortunately this method drives up costs in two ways - unnecessary grease wastage and seal damage. Another fallacy is that grease is grease. It is commonly believed that EP2 grease is suitable for every application, from door hinges to fan applications. Many operators reason that as long as a bearing or unit has grease in it, it is lubricated and will not fail and that universal grease will do. This is most certainly not the case. It is important to determine how grease actually works and to understand terms such as ‘Thickener’, ‘Base Oil Type’, etc. In a simple test placing grease on paper, a film will start appearing around the grease. This is the base oil ‘leaking’ out of the thickener. If that grease is warmed up, the rate of ‘leaking’ would increase as the thickener loses its retention properties. Thus, as the heat increases, the faster the oil will leak. It is also important to remember that it is the oil and not the thickener that lubricates the bearing. So logic dictates that the oil will ‘leak’ from the thickener at a much higher rate in a bearing designed to run at a high temperature. Eventually the bearing will fail because there will no longer be any oil to lubricate the unit. So SKF has designed a grease that will ‘leak’ at a slower rate under higher temperature, making sure that the oil leaks enough to lubricate but not so much so that it runs out or separates completely from the thickener. All grease is designed to perform to a specific set of parameters and conditions. All greases may overlap in certain areas when it comes to operational temperatures, but it is important to keep within those parameters. So selecting the correct grease to suit a particular application is essential. To this end all the operating conditions that the bearing or unit is expected to perform in must be known in order to recommend the correct grease. It is not advisable to merely recommend a grease based on what a customer is currently using as they could be using an incorrect product. Greases are a mixture of chemicals that could react very differently to each other if mixed meaning that different greases may be incompatible. It is thus important to know which chemicals can be mixed safely and which cannot. We therefore recommend that customers and end-users consult a SKF expert. Thickener, as the name implies, adds density to the grease. Some greases are thick and tacky whilst others are almost oil-like in consistency. All grease conforms to the international grading standard, NLGI (National Lubrication Grease Institute) consistency class, starting at 000 (thinnest), up 6 (thickest). Once the correct grease has been identified, the next consideration is how much grease should be in a bearing. As already mentioned, a common practice is purging all