A brick manufacturer had a large fan that pulls air, brick and cement dust thru an overhead duct system into a bag house then through the fan and up a stack. The baghouse requires cleaning frequently and during the cleaning cycle the baghouse is bypassed and the material goes through the fan. This causes buildup on the fan blades and thus an imbalance and vibration. The vibration is so severe it cracks the motor base, bearing base and fan housing.
The customer has attempted to deal with this by filling the fan base with concrete, welding large angle iron to the fan housing and attempting to chain the fan to the ground.
Jeff Wilson (Sales) spotted the old fan in the junk pile and offered the customer an option to “refurbish” it. In looking at the fan we were able to reuse the fan blade, intake cone and fan housing. Marc Dardeen redesigned the system and the shop fabricated a heaver fan
base with internal baffles and the ability to be un-bolted from the fan housing. This will make future repairs if required easer to manage. The wheel and housing were cleaned painted and balanced. A new shaft was machined, new bearings and motor coupling were installed. Everything was laser aligned. Now the customer has a very solid backup fan at a fraction of the cost of a new unit. They will not be throwing anything more into the scrap pile without asking Horner if they can fix it first!
