xiros® Ball Bearing
xiros® Ball Bearing - Maintenance- and lubricant-free
xiros® ball bearings
igus® has already made a name as manufacturer of energy chains and in the meantime also of plain bearings. How come you are now also entering the area of rolling contact bearings?
As the manufacturer of polymer plain bearings, naturally we also watch the ball bearings market. In the process we got this impression that a good technical status quo exists since years for certain products in the plastics ball bearings area, but advanced research and development regarding materials or bearing design are rarely published.
On the other hand, with the demand for maintenance-free bearing solutions in the plain bearings area, our customers lead us inevitably to new developments in materials and products, and today we open up application areas with polymer plain bearings, which we could not even dream of in the mid 80s. Some of the best examples for this are the numerous exciting application descriptions that have emerged in the scope of our "manus®" contest for applications with plastic bearings. The German "manus®" will be awarded for the third time this year in Hanover and once again numerous industrial sectors such as packaging technology, fitness equipment, measurement technology, etc., will be represented.
Therefore we hold that there's a lot more to be utilized in the plastic ball bearing area. We believe that with our long years of experience in tribiologically optimized plastics and our testing potentials, the topic of ball bearings can be advanced by a long step. At present, vis-a-vis ball bearings, we are in the position we were in with the plain bearings perhaps in the mid 80s. The igus® ball bearings now introduced in Hanover are thereby a first step in the direction of a technically optimized and calculable plastic ball bearings.
Which parts of the bearing are plastic? Do we assume that the rolling elements would continue to be made of steel?
The inner and outer rings are made from high-quality "iglidur®" materials. The rolling elements are made of stainless steel or glass; ceramic is also an option here. In Hanover we will first of all introduce bearing rings made with our high-temperature material "iglidur® A500".
Traditional bearings manufacturers already offer plastic cages (retainers) and ball races for special purposes. How will igus® make a name for themselves?
We would like to extend the spectrum of potential applications by concentrating on plastic as standard material and in the future to offer the user the most possible safety in the design, which, in our view, is not available at present in this area. We would also like to offer our customers the possibility to order all types off the shelf at sensible prices.
You have certainly done preliminary service life tests. How do your bearings perform in the durability tests?
A dry-running plastic ball bearing is not to be compared with a permanently lubricated metallic bearing with regard to the running times in continuous operation. According to application parameters, you attain service lives of several 10,000 hours with permanently lubricated bearings under normal conditions. With plastic ball bearings for specially high temperature applications, the service life on the other hand can be less than 100 hours, however without a drop of lubricant... Where an application of lubricated metallic bearings is restricted or not at all possible, the advantages of plastic such as dry operation, freedom from maintenance, resistance to corrosion and media come to the fore.
What sort of applications do you want to cover with your rolling contact bearings? Are there perhaps also applications that are not yet covered by conventional bearings, or is it mainly to replace the classical bearing?
We expect to find a market where the previous standards of plastic ball bearings are limited by application parameters such as temperature, chemistry, humidity, etc., and/or special solutions are hard to come by or available only at exorbitant costs. Our goal is to achieve the ever available and calculable plastic ball bearings also for extreme application conditions.
Are the rolling contact bearings produced according to customer requirements, or do you produce several standard dimensions?
We will be introducing deep groove ball bearings in Hanover for the shaft diameters 3, 6, 8 and 10 mm. This spectrum would be extended in the course of time. Naturally our attention is on tailor-made solutions in the future similar to our daily work with the "iglidur®" plain bearings.
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