Gearbox upgrade for Derbyshire quarry

Heavy-duty conveyors at CEMEX’s Doves Holes Quarry are being upgraded on a rolling programme that has already seen the installation of 10 Series-G heavy-duty helical gearboxes from David Brown Engineering. The gearboxes are supplied by Jackson Power, who have been working with the CEMEX operations team as part of an ongoing review of performance to increase productivity and reduce downtime.

Each of the conveyors, the longest running over a distance of more than 370m, was originally equipped with a single Radicon worm-drive gearbox supplied by David Brown. The new G14 and G15 units are replacing 10in, 12in and 14in gearboxes across a power-handling range of 30–75kW. The Series-G units offer similar ratios but are available on faster delivery than worm boxes and also offer efficiency gains of at least 15% in terms of power usage. They are being supplied with modified base plates to allow easy replacement and the position of the output shafts is also replicated in the new gearboxes.