IBMS Case Studies
When the world’s leading manufacturer and supplier of
submersible pumps, mixers and fluid handling technology
needed a 8 foot diameter, 30,000 lb flywheel balanced, they came to IBMS.
In their search to complete a double pump for a refinery project, ITT Flygt Needed this flywheel balanced and certified.
IBMS had the machine to balance the flywheel on but no way to drive it. The search was on to find a bolt on drive pulley at the correct Outer Diameter to simulate the flywheel rotating at the correct rpm. Our searches yield nothing, either the OD was correct but the ID was small, without enough material to open the ID bore up. Or the ID bore was correct and the OD was too small.
Our team’s solution was to make one. In order to simulate the rpm the flywheel’s operating speed, a drive pulley need to be a minimum of 27 inches in diameter and have a drive belt groove three inches wide.
Using the Doosan VTL we started with a 4 inch thick piece of aluminum, with a rough cut diameter of 29 inches. We began by turning the OD to 27.75 inches, and boring a 6.75 diameter hole in the center. Once the ID and OD were turned, we milled weigh out of the pulley on both sides using the live tooling option on the Doosan. The pulley was transfer to our Matsuura Vertical Machining Center so that to ½-13 set screw holes could be drilled and tapped. This was accomplished using our right angle drilling heads on the Matsuura.
The machined pulley was then balanced to ensure that it ran true. Next step was to mount it on the shaft of the flywheel and the assembly was balanced.
Not only was the flywheel balanced, it was delivered on time!
