6th November 2025 | Saving our Steel Mill Customer Money!

A redesign of a gear coupling by the NDE Engineering Services team has helped deliver an estimated saving on downtime of £128,000 for a leading client in the steel sector.

The original gear couplings at the facility offered minimal capacity for misalignment. This was causing significant challenges with a major time investment for the in-house laser alignment team to try to achieve the required alignment accuracy for the couplings.

The low misalignment capacity was also resulting in major issues with the motor and gearbox bearings, even causing the gearbox to lift and shear the mounting bolts.

The NDE team completely redesigned the coupling, combining extra gear tooth crowning and a new floating sealing arrangement, increasing the misalignment capacity.

Not only did this make the alignment process easier, the new couplings – installed across four drives in total - removed the risk of premature bearing failures, with a substantial increase in uptime.

Get in touch to find out how we could help you!