A loose, spinning bearing had damaged a large fan shaft at a cement manufacturer. Hardfacing and machining the shaft would have taken five days of downtime, and it could have led to future weakening and damage from distortion and fretting corrosion. A LOCTITE® Engineering Solutions Expert audited the plant and provided training to the maintenance team. The team decided to use LOCTITE® 638™ Retaining Compound as a potential new repair method. As a result, in just 8 hours, maintenance personnel cleaned and removed the main bearing, applied LOCTITE® 638™ to the shaft, slipped the bearing into the proper position and the fan was up and running.
The customer said: “We not only minimized our plant downtime on this repair, we also reduced the likelihood of future repairs and downtime.”