An asset improvement programme delivered annual cost savings of €38,400 for a manufacturer of concrete pipes, by replacing the original bearings on the blade support roller of the concrete pipe-slotting machine with Molded Oil bearings.
The problem on the original bearings, as identified by an NSK applications engineer, was the ingress of concrete dust. This is a common problem in the industry: the dust combines with bearing lubricant to produce an abrasive mixture that causes premature bearing failure. In this instance, the dust- contaminated lubricant was causing failures on the blade support roller of a concrete pipe-slotting machine four-times a year, each failure resulting in 8-hours downtime, at a cost of €1,200/hr.
As a means of overcoming the problem, the engineer recommended using bearings equipped with Molded Oil(trademark), a solid lubricant technology developed for bearings used in remote locations, and/or where oil and grease absorbing dust is produced. To date, these bearing shave operated for 12-months in this application with not a single failure.
Molded Oil(trademark) has been proven to transform the performance of bearings used in machinery and equipment - in terms of reliability, maintenance free intervals and operation - in environmentsexposed to contamination. It also enables plant operators to makereal cost savings by replacing existing, and often costly, methods of lubricating machine parts.
A highly effective lubrication method, Molded Oil differs from other oil impregnated plastics - where the oil content is a mere few percent by weight - by offering a lubricatingoil content of more than 50% by weight. This enables the material to always maintain a good lubricationregime, helped by the mechanism of oil discharge from the matrix, which is temperature dependent: so thehigher the heat generation, the higher the oil discharge rate. Operating temperatures are normally limited to 60°c.
