Posted to News on 28th Dec 2015, 19:19
Slew bearings and gearboxes in packaged drives from Brevini
Brevini UK has used a joint venture agreement between its parent company and La Leonessa to add new slew bearing options to the slew gearboxes that it supplies to the marine and other sectors. The resulting "packaged drive' approach brings several benefits to UK customers, including a reduced number of interfaces for the machine builder to manage, pre- and post-sales support for the complete drive train and full technical assistance for the La Leonessa range of solid ring slew bearings.
Dave Brown of Brevini UK says: "This all adds up to reduce costs and minimise risks for machine builders." The original joint venture agreement was signed to formalise combined production of slew bearings in China, mainly for the rapidly expanding Chinese wind turbine market. The manufacturing site is located in the city of Yancheng, in Jiangsu Province, alongside existing Brevini Power Transmission and Brevini Fluid Power plants.
As well as high-quality slew bearings for wind turbines, the joint venture opened up opportunities in packaging planetary gearboxes and slew bearings as integrated products for applications like water treatment plants and large marine winches.
Brown explains: "This was an exciting development, and it is natural that the Brevini global sales network was tasked with responsibility of promoting the La Leonessa bearing range within certain sectors. However, in the UK the target sectors had only limited potential, but we saw a great benefits of adding slew bearings to the slew gearboxes we were already supplying. This adds value to our products and also reduced the engineering requirements on our customers because we ensure the integration and interface between the two elements."
In fact, Brown says that the slew bearings used in the UK are all manufactured in existing European plant, rather than the new one in China which is primarily covering non-European demand.
The La Leonessa slew bearings are well regarded throughout the world and can be specified to match individual application requirements. They are produced in sizes from 300mm diameter to an astonishing 4000mm diameter in a range of materials to suit different applications. Design variations include single or double-row ball bearings or roller bearings, internal or external gearing or no gearing.
Many existing installations, in the UK and elsewhere, already match La Leonessa slew bearings with Brevini slew gearboxes, and as Brown says: "The new partnership means that Brevini UK can now fully support and supply the full packaged drive system for slewing applications, as well as exclusively representing the solid ring slew bearing range of La Leonessa within the UK market."
He sums up the user benefits as: "A more integrated product reduces the need for on-site engineering by the customers and thus avoids many potential mechanical problems. Costs are reduced because efficiency and effectiveness increase. Time is saved through faster delivery and improved communications. The total system can be tuned and optimised for best performance and maximum reliability."
For more information about La Leonessa slew bearings and gearboxes please visit www.brevini.co.uk.
