Fast emergency motor repair boosts Rio Tinto Alcan 07 February 2011

Rio Tinto Alcan reports being saved recently by swift action from the Eriks engineering team, when a large, bespoke-framed fan motor failed at its Lynemouth site.

Phil Wrigely, Rio Tinto Alcan's Lynemouth smelter works director, says that, thanks to a swift intervention and rework, the motor was back in action six days earlier than anticipated.

Wrigely explains the problem occurred with its main 920kW 3.3kV motor, used for unloading powdered alumina at the ship unloading facility. When it failed, it left the company temporarily unable to re-stock all its UK smelting sites.

Unfortunately, Rio Tinto Alcan also had no spare motor, due to its size and long operating life expectancy. In fact, the motor was a special frame size, with a replacement only available in the US.

Wrigely says he did some quick thinking and called in Eriks' Killingworth engineering facility to collect the motor and strip it down. That led to Eriks recommending remanufacture, with a set of coils, rewinding and overhaul on and emergency service basis.

Fortunately, Killingworth has a copper mill as well as coil manufacturing and repair facilities on site, so engineering work was able to start within 24 hours of receiving the motor, using materials from stock. Erisk then worked around the clock – with the coil and repair facilities operating in tandem to minimise downtime.

Says Wrigely: "[Eriks'] efforts helped us in continuing our operations without major interruption to our customers."

Brian Tinham

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