DRIVES & CONTROLS SHOW PREVIEW
COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTION
RADICON
Radicon Completes fifth gearbox installation on Brae Alpha
Radicon has this month installed its fifth
set of case hardened gears on the Brae
Alpha platform in the North Sea, helping to
significantly reduce downtime on the rig.
SPX Flow approached the Elland-based
industrial gearbox manufacturer at the
end of May 2018 following a series of
consistent gear unit failures on the North
Sea platform.
Global supplier of highly specialised,
engineered solutions, SPX Flow was
concerned that the downtime caused
by 20 failures in 15 years was alarming
and Michael Sheedy, Contracts Manager,
decided it was time to act.
Michael approached Amanda Lycett,
Radicon’s Key Account Manager for
Scotland and Ireland and asked her to
look at the Regal / Opperman HDA5 gear
unit, which was connected to SPX’s Union
Glycol Pump.
Radicon’s engineers confirmed that the
failure of the motor pinion and mating
first gear was due to neither being case
hardened and profile ground, seriously
affecting durability. Initially, Radicon looked
at replacing the unit with an M08 in-line unit,
but the differing shaft dimensions would
need the coupling to be bored to suit. An
alternative solution, changing the taper lock
bush was also rejected as the pump skid
would need to be modified to suit the M08.
Radicon’s answer was to reverse engineer
the gears with case hardened gears, which
would be quicker, cheaper and easier to
achieve.
The first reversed gears were installed in
September 2018, and since then, a further
four units have been supplied.
With none of the new units failing, SPX
Flow is delighted with Radicon’s service.
“Radicon’s solution was the perfect
resolution to the problem,” says Michael.
“Any change in equipment would have
involved a material change, and because
this was taking place on an offshore
platform, it would have resulted in months of
reviews, and we simply didn’t have the time.
The first reversed
gears were installed in
September 2018, and
since then, a further four
units have been supplied.
Radicon came up with a very cost-effective
solution. We are now in the process of
upgrading all of the units on the platform. In
fact, as we mark a year of working together,
Radicon is just about to install the 5th
replacement.”
The Brae Alpha platform is one of the
oldest platforms operating in the North Sea.
Petroleum and natural gas exploration on
the platform, which is some 170 miles north-
east of Aberdeen, began in 1983. now retains the intellectual property on
all Radicon products. Today, Radicon
employs 50 people across its UK sales,
design and service teams. The company
supplies 5,000 gearboxes and repair some
300 gearboxes every year to customers
across a wide range of industries, including
cement, water, mining and quarrying, oil
and gas, power generation, mining and
quarrying, food production, pulp and
paper, steel and rubber and plastics.
The Radicon brand was first used by
David Brown in 1933. In 2010, David Brown
sold the division to Elecon Engineering,
Asia’s largest gear manufacturer, which To find out more about Radicon and its
drop-in replacement service visit
www.radicon.com, call 01484 465800 or
email [email protected].
For further information, please visit www.radicon.com
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PECM Issue 43