The Flender Standard Gearbox (FSG), has been the market benchmark in mechanical drive technology for nearly three decades. The signature blue gearboxes, designed in Germany, can be spotted at thousands of industrial plants worldwide. Changing market demands, however, required the German drive manufacturer to develop a successor to FSG, called FLENDER ONE.
It is a completely redesigned version of the standard industrial gear unit and was first introduced as the single-stage helical gearbox. The new gearbox reduces end users’ operating expenditures and saves valuable resources, due to a unique housing design and a gear set calculated according to the latest Flender methods.
In addition, designers benefit from a quick and smart configuration that greatly simplifies the selection process. It is currently available as a single-stage version for the paper, pump and mining business.
Lower operating costs and energy consumption
The award-winning Flender One product design features a 35 per cent increase in housing surface area.
Its cooling ribs significantly increase thermal capacity and in many cases eliminate the need for additional, external cooling of the gearbox. This not only saves investment and service costs but also valuable energy. The optimized Metaperform® gear set also reduces power loss by up to 50 per cent compared with previous gear unit solutions. This makes operating more efficient and the return on investment is reached very quickly.
Flender meets the greatest industrial challenges of our time with energy efficiency and sustainable product solutions. Precise design for the application and perfect dimensioning avoids wasting raw materials and other resources.
Flender has succeeded in developing the world’s narrowest gear ratio range, with 103 stages between 1 and 7.1 per size. This allows the speed to be set almost ideally for maximum efficiency.
A key benefit in mining and pump applications. This speedfit means a maximum deviation of 1.5 per cent between the desired speed and the available speed. “We want to make the world more sustainable together with our customers and partners.
With Flender One, our customers get a completely new type of gearbox solution, custom-fit for their application and exactly according to their requirements – with the smallest possible drive concept and thus without waste.
The reduced energy requirement during operation also helps to save resources,” says Andreas Evertz, CEO of the Flender Group.
Intelligence in operation
The uniqueness of Flender One also lies in the digital services throughout the entire life cycle – from ordering to operation in the plant. Flender’s new gearbox intelligence AIQ® is installed as standard in the Flender One for the first time.
Thanks to integrated sensor technology and extensive analysis functions, it provides plant operators with valuable information about the gearbox and process during operation via an app or in the portal.
In this way, operating conditions that could have a damaging effect can be detected and failures avoided. Drive and process become transparent, and service can be planned.
The smooth life cycle of the drive and plant avoids unnecessary downtime and creates maximum planning reliability and efficiency for operators and services.
Three-step configuration
Another innovation in drive technology is the new product configurator.
With just three pieces of information, the customer can configure his customized gear unit online: Application, power, and speed. Within seconds, the 3D data and a 360-degree preview of the gearbox are available.
Flender One is already shipping as single-stage version, particularly suitable for the paper industry and pump applications like those found in the mining or water industry.
To acess the new FLENDER ONE online configurator, customers may contact their local Flender sales contact or reach out via flender.com. Later in 2024, the German drive manufacturer will also introduce redesigned multi-stage FLENDER ONE gear units.
Technologically advance Flender One gear units are currently produced in Germany and will be available soon from Flender manufacturing facilities across the globe. In India, Flender Standard Gearbox (FSG) series gear units are available from their local production facility in Chennai.