11/06/2008
Motor shafts on the high seas – customer story from CERATIZIT
Scana relies on CERATIZIT’s competence in ship building |
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No matter whether it is a tanker or a luxury cruise liner, a motor yacht or a passenger ferry - all these vessels have one thing in common: shafts transmit the force from the engine to the propeller. The production of such shafts is a speciality of the Scana company. For turning operations, Scana relies on inserts and tools from CERATIZIT.
Scana Björneborg in Sweden is part of the Norwegian Scana Industrier ASA, which manufactures steel products for the following five industry sectors: energy (components for generators and turbines), ship building (propeller shafts and hubs), machines and transport (axles, clutches and forks for fork lifts), steel (rolls, forged components and profiles) and offshore products (valves and joints for drilling platforms). The entire group has 1,850 employees, 320 at the Björneborg site.
Inserts for international customers
The Björneborg site looks back on a long forging tradition: the first forge was built as far back as 1656. Scana Björneborg has its own steelwork, its own forge with a 3600/4500 ton press, a facility for heat treatment and a machine hall for finishing. Per year about 2,500 products are manufactured for ABB, Siemens, Rolls Royce, DEW, Wärtsilä, Metso and Shell. In the field of turning Scana applies inserts and tools from CERATIZIT.
Interview with Magnus Dåverhög, production and process engineer at Scana:
Which material are the shafts made of?
Dåverhög: “The shafts are made of steel. The alloy is adapted to the application and requirements. Every product we manufacture is therefore unique.”
Where do you buy the steel?
Dåverhög: “We buy steel scrap within a radius of 150 km and melt it ourselves. The waste produced at our company during machining is also recycled. The raw material department machines about 80,000 tons of steel per year. We use 100 different steel grades.”
How much swarf is produced per month?
Dåverhög: “That depends on the parts we machine. On average these are around 1000 tons per month.”
How long does it take on average to machine a shaft?
Dåverhög: “After forging the shafts are subject to heat treatment and are then transported to the machine hall. Most of the time the parts are only rough machined, which takes between 15 and 30 hours. If the shaft has to be finish-machined (as in the case of naval shafts) we are talking about several hundred hours.”
What is so special about this kind of machining?
Dåverhög: “We produce shafts with a length up to 25 metres and a diameter of up to two metres. All shafts are produced through open-die forging. As every shaft is unique, their manufacture can be considered as a special art. It takes many years to train a good machine operator so that he is able to carry out turning and milling operations reliably. We are therefore very happy to have more than 350 years of experience at the Björneborg site!”
How do you assess the relationship of Scana and CERATIZIT?
Dåverhög: “We strive continuously to optimize our processes. In this respect the tools in the workshop are an important element. We work together very closely with some companies, and CERATIZIT is one of them. CERATIZIT always provides tools which correspond to the state of the art of carbide technology.”
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