Articles on the cement industry from Global Cement

The United States of America is the third largest¹ and third most populous¹ nation on the planet and is the richest in terms of GDP.² It has achieved steady economic growth throughout most of its history through the application of free-markets to almost every area of its economy. Historically a strong manufacturer, the country has suffered during the ongoing economic crisis, which has strongly hit construction and the cement industry.

Wikov Gear s.r.o. is a leading manufacturer of gearboxes for drives of cement mills and kilns in central and eastern Europe. One of its main products for the cement industry is side drive gearboxes. These gearboxes are in particular demand owing to their compact design with a small footprint, high efficiency and the low wear of the meshing girth gear.

Wikov's side drive gearboxes have gone through extensive development and innovation. Based on new requirements in the market and experience obtained from operation of these gearboxes Wikov implemented major research and development with the objective to offer customers an innovative product with extended output parameters up to 6MW, including innovative design of a separate lubrication system. This project was implemented with financial support from state budget funds through the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic. Research and development was conducted along three lines:

1. Research into the dynamic behaviour of these gearboxes with the objective to be able to predict weak points of the drive in all conditions established in practice and to create an extremely stable and reliable gearbox;

2. Development of a separate lubrication system, so that any gearing and bearings in the gearbox that are very sensitive to oil quality were lubricated by a separate lubrication circuit and sealed from its environment (in particular the area of the gear rim);

3. Identification of an analytical method to simulate the behaviour of large gear wheels during heat treatment.

All of these tasks had only one objective: the design of a reliable and stable gearbox with low maintenance requirements. Let us focus in particular on the first and second targets, which seem to be the most interesting in terms of mill operation.

The most easterly of the countries on the Indochina Peninsular, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam stretches for over 1400km north to south. It shares borders with China to the north, Laos to the west and Cambodia in the south west.

Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in south east Asia. It is split into two roughly equal-size regions, Peninsular Malaysia, which shares the Malay Peninsular with Thailand, and Malaysian Borneo, which occupies around a third of the island of Borneo, which is shared with Indonesia (Kalimantan).

Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam are large and diverse nations located in south east Asia, a region of the world that continues to undergo rapid economic development despite the 'global' economic downturn. With many of their major towns and cities developing heavily in recent decades, attention is now shifting to other areas. Indonesia is looking to develop its eastern region of Papua and Malaysia is turning its attention to the development of Malaysian Borneo. Less developed Vietnam also has massive development potential.