The repair personnel of the metallurgical equipment maintenance shop No.1 is able to keep the wheel pairs of all the rolling-stock of the Management of Railway Transport in operating condition with the help of a railway wheel lathe. Turning of the worn out wheels is done on this lathe.
The lathe is particularly loaded during the interrepair time when the number of turnings of wheel pairs increases, i.e. approximately 50 per day. The energy consumption of the lathe increases correspondingly. Therefore since 2007 the shop specialists have started solving the question regarding modernization of the lathe equipment to increase its productivity and save its energy resources.
Modernization of the equipment was done by “TECK Group”, Kramatorsk. During the process of modernization all the old electrical equipment of the lathe was replaced by thyristor converters, instead of three hydro stations only one was installed, the cutting mechanism was modernized and the cutting instrument was replaced.
The cost of modernization amounted to 630 000 UAH. A new lathe would have cost the Works 2 700 000 UAH. The modernized railway wheel lathe consumes only 80 KW/hour of energy instead of 225 KW/hour, which it consumed before.
Hence the annual economy of electric energy amounts to 240 000 UAH.