Driving Spindles for Rolling Mills

The ENCE GmbH manufacturing and engineering company offers customers in EU countries, Eastern Europe different associated metallurgic equipment and component parts required for repair and recovery of replaceable and wear parts of rolling mills, coiled steel hot galvanizing lines, lacquer and polymeric strip coating lines, automated steel strip pickling lines and sheet-bending equipment.

For driving transmissions of rolling mills and other slow-speed machines with increased capacity used in metallurgy and machine engineering the ENCE GmbH manufacturing and engineering company offers spindles and universal joint shafts of different types and sizes that allow transferring the required torque at the transfer of shaft axes engaged. Spindles are manufactured on the production site in Turkey according to the customer’s specification employing proven modern typical designs and materials proven in continuous and reliable operation of driving transmissions.

The rolling mill spindle comprises an intermediate spindle with two coupling assemblies of different types, centering joints of the intermediate spindle and drive axes and rolling mill roll axes or a pinion stand.

The ENCE GmbH manufacturing and engineering company supplies customers with spindles of different designs for rolling mill drives:

• Roller spindles
• Ball spindles
• Gear-type spindles
• Universal ball-bearing spindles

Manufactured rolling mill spindles include a wide range of nominal dimensions and operational advantages:

• Increased joint twist angle
• Improved drive dynamic performance
• Increased drive service life
• Noiseless operation
• High performance

In manufacturing spindles for rolling mills and heavy machines new technological and designing method are employed that increase their service life. Spindles are manufactured on state-of-art high-precision equipment.

The design of the rolling mill roller spindles incorporates a number of innovations that provide an increased load carrying capacity and longer service life as compared to gear-type spindles and ball-bearing spindles. This is achieved due to the following features:

• Use of the roller spindle force-transferring elements made in the form of barrel-shaped rollers placed between the bush and cage of the spindle joint in their semi-cylindrical grooves
• Regular load distribution on the rollers regardless the cage twist angle relative the bush
• Location of the roller spindle joint centers (roller belt centerline) in the zone of mill and pinion roll blades
• Exclusion of a false joint in the coupling of the mill roll blades with the bush and another positive factor created by the know-how
• Supplying the joints with sealed centering devices that provide reliable grease retention

The spindle joints provide constant angle speed of the spindle driven element, a cage or bush which is an important factor in increasing accuracy of rolling at high speeds. In contrast to usual ball-bearing and gear-type spindles, roller spindles exhibit higher performance and noiselessness.

Gear-type spindle exhibit long service life, due to the following parameters:

• Location of the gear engagement between the cage and bush in the zone of the mill roll blade
• Use of spherical centering joints that prevent transferring radial loads on the gear teeth
• Employment of a new design of the spindle gear-type coupling seal that prevents entering water and scales into the coupling and providing grease presence in the spindle coupling

The rolling mill gear-type spindle consists of:

• Intermediate spindle of the gear-type spindle
• O-ring
• Washer
• Locking rings
• Gear housing
• Cover
• Plate
• Imbus bolts
• Sealing
• Gear-type spindle flange

The О-ring of the rolling mill gear-type spindle is put on shaft «1». The shaft and gear housing «4» are fixed by means of locking ring «5». Cover «2» is put on the intermediate spindle of the rolling mill gear-type spindle. Gear body «9» is bolted to plate «10» by means of Imbus bolts «11». Gear-type spindle flange «12» is mounted on gear housing «9». O-ring «7» is put on gear-type spindle cover «6». Spindle cover «6» is fixed on gear housing «9» with locking ring «8». O-ring «7» is put on spindle cover «16» and then cover «16» (with O-ring «7») is put on gear housing «17». Gear-type spindle cover «16» and gear housing «17» are fixed by means of locking ring «8». Gear housings «17» and «9» are assembled with the intermediate spindle. Alternatively, washer «13», sealing «14» and washer «13» are put on gear housing «9» and fixed by means of locking ring «15». The gear-type spindle assembly sequence: washer-sealing-washer, employed for gear housing «9» as above, is repeated for gear housing «17».

Universal Ball-Bearing Spindles provide increased productivity of rolling mills. This is achieved due to the following features:

• Considerable (up to 18°) twist angles in coupling heads
• Quick connect to the roll stand
• Convenient assembly and disassembly, easy repair, mounting and dismounting
• High load carrying capacity and long service life at minimum overall dimensions

It is possible to manufacture special spindles with parameters required by the customer according to specifications.