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25-tonne gearboxes are Renold`s largest ever

19 September, 2007

Renold Gears has produced the heaviest pair of wormwheel gearboxes in its history. With a combined weight approaching 25 tonnes, the two 2m-diameter gearboxes are destined for a steel mill in Asia where they will be used as the main drives for a screw-down mechanism that compresses newly-cast steel billets into thinner sections. The boxes will be driven by 220kW motors.

Renold worm gear

The single-reduction worm gears have a reduction ratio of 21.5:1 and have particularly thick teeth, with a face width of more than 200mm, to withstand static torque levels of more than 530kNm. They were manufactured in pairs at Renold’s Milnrow plant and externally look identical. Internally, however, the gears are cut with opposite angles to form left- and right-hand threads. This ensures that their outputs rotate in opposite directions when both inputs are driven in the same direction.

"Where sudden and huge shock loads are going to be encountered, only wormwheel sets manufactured with the maximum tooth width are suitable," explains Stephen Whitehead, Renold’s sales director for precision gears. "Only the combination of hardened steel wormshafts and ‘soft’ phosphor-bronze wormwheels can withstand these loads with no detrimental effect on service life."




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