NSK’S Molded Oil Bearings Deliver Savings In Downtime Costs Of €38,400/Yr For Concrete Pipe Manufacturer.

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 four-times per year, each failure resulting in 8-hours downtime, at a cost of €1,200/hr.

As a means of overcoming the problem, the NSK engineer recommended using bearings equipped with Molded Oil (trademark), a solid lubricant technology developed by NSK for bearings used in remote locations, and/or where oil and grease absorbing dust is produced.

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 environments exposed to contamination. It also enables plant operators to make real 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 lubricating oil content of more than 50% by weight. This enables the material to always maintain a good lubrication regime, helped by the mechanism of oil discharge from the matrix, which this is temperature dependent: so the higher the heat generation, the higher the oil discharge rate. Operating temperatures are normally limited to 60°c.