bounds over the past 20 years and now
workshops use materials as good as,
and sometimes better than those used
during manufacture. With products as
good as the original going into the stator
repair as when originally manufactured,
the efficiency of the machine is going to
be maintained, as shown in the above
projects. This is equally true for the first,
second, or third repair. The same quality
of materials goes in as came out, so the
same efficiency rating is maintained
before and after repair.
Figure 1
The repair process is also very
environmentally friendly, the cast iron or
aluminium end shields and stator housing
are cleaned and reused, steel laminations,
and steel and aluminium rotor reused.
The steel bearings are virtually always
replaced and the steel bearings returned
as pure steel to be recycled.
If the windings are burnt out, they are
normally removed by hand as pure burnt
copper wire, which does not require
separating from any other materials when
returned to a copper refinery. Considering
it takes hundreds of tonnes of spoil, and
a large amount of water and chemicals,
to get one tonne of copper out of a good
copper mine, this is a huge environmental
saving. Interestingly 85% of an average
copper refineries production is supplied
by mined copper and just 15% recycled
copper. With current known reserves
able to supply the world's copper
requirements for around 60 years, it is not
an infinite resource. Weight for weight the
service industry returns to copper refiners
the same weight of copper removed as
it uses, and could exist without mined
copper. So the repair of equipment should
have a very valuable place in a company's
ISO 50001 policy document.
Figure 2
Good repairers and service centres use
materials that are as good as or better
than the original specification, the
machine designs are also to a much
higher standard to enable a much longer
service life.
Most AEMT Service Centres will sell,
service and maintain electrical machines
and can give an unbiased view as to why
a machine failed and whether to repair a
machine or buy a new replacement.
Tel: +44 (0)1904 674895
Fax: +44 (0)1904 674896
Web: www.theaemt.com
Email: [email protected]
84
PECM Issue 30
Figure 3