Most of the mines Regal Rexnord services are in harsh environments. The heat and dust put a lot of strain on moving parts, and to make matters more complicated, they are also often extremely remote.

As a result, reliability is paramount. Downtime on these sites is extremely expensive, as they can be hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres from a capital city.

Shane Rock, Regal Rexnord’s general manager for the Australasian region said this is why the company has focused on developing extremely reliable equipment like the Falk V-Class gear drive.

“The V-Class has had over 100,000 hours of research and development put into it,” he told ABHR. “Extensive modelling has been done to ensure it meets our expectations.”

“There’s a lot of clever design that minimises the number of moving parts that can handle the heavy-duty environments and run cooler.”

To maximise performance, and life of the drive, V-Class features cast cooling fins on the ductile iron housing surface that optimise air speed for maximum heat dissipation.

Even with all these cooling features there are still some applications that require more drive cooling such as high power, high output speed gearboxes.

For those applications Regal Rexnord offers the DuraPlate cooling system to provide additional thermal capacity.

The DuraPlate is a self-contained heat exchanger integral to the gear unit itself. It will typically more than double the thermal capacity of a fan cooled gear reducer, which often allows the unit’s thermal ratings to equal or exceed the mechanical ratings.

DuraPlate requires no external power or a water supply because it’s powered by a shaft-driven pump mounted in an intermediate gear shaft. This configuration requires no additional motors, electrical equipment installation, or plumbing for water.

Stainless steel hoses provide durable and protected oil circulation for a long drive lifespan. The DuraPlate heat exchanger is manufactured with heavy-gauge stainless steel which unlike traditional fin and core radiator style coolers, can’t block from dust and is almost impossible to damage.

When the gearbox is operating, the shaft-driven pump draws oil from the gearbox sump continuously and the gear lubricant is delivered to a thermally actuated valve. When the V-Class is operating without need for additional thermal capacity, the oil is returned directly to the gearbox. Then, when the V-Class oil temperature exceeds a certain threshold, the valve begins to redirect the oil to travel through the DuraPlate heat exchanger.

Rock said customers are very happy with the gear boxes on their sites.

“DuraPlate has been extremely reliable and the gearboxes are  running at lower temperatures, which means longer periods between oil changes.

“Regal Rexnord has been supplying the V-Class gear drives for Australian customers for about 10 years now.

“ We also have the capability to full load test gearboxes at both our assembly and repair centres in Newcastle and Perth,  where we have invested significantly in equipment and technology.

Having locations located on each coast was an important logistical consideration for the company, as it can sometimes take more than a week to ship a gearbox from one side of the country to another.

Rock said availability is everything when it comes to the mining industry – customers  can’t risk even a week  when their operation is on the line.

“It’s not something they ever want to entertain. They also want to  see firsthand any issues to assist them with continuous improvement of  their operations,” he said.

Regal Rexnord has also significantly invested into an apprenticeship program and graduate engineering program.

The business wants to ensure it is supporting the next generation of workers in the industry, so have begun hiring new apprentices and graduates every year.

Rock said the decision was made to ensure the company was supporting Australian jobs, growing the industry and to ensure we have sufficient skilled tradespeople and talent pipeline to support our growth plans given the recent acquisition of Altra Motion.

Altra is an exciting addition to Regal Rexnord, with brands like Svendborg Brakes and Stieber backstops, it uniquely positions Regal Rexnord as a complete power transmission supplier to the mining industry.