Bearings Tolerate Contaminated Lubricants

Bearings Tolerate Contaminated Lubricants NSK has worked with leading global steel makers to develop a package of high-performance bearings, matching specific application requirements to provide extended uptime and reduced maintenance costs, despite operating conditions of extreme heat, water ingress, and lubricant contaminated with water and scale. One of the key factors in the enhanced performance of NSK's bearing range is the development of new materials technology: in particular, Super-TF steel.In comparison with bearings made of ordinary carburised steel, Super-TF bearings offer up to 10 times the life with contaminated lubrication and up to twice the life where the lubricant is clean.Where the problem is related to insufficient lubrication, the life of Super TF bearings is around 5.5 times that of ordinary carburised steel. In addition to extending service life under conditions of boundary or contaminated lubrication, Super TF bearings also offer increased resistance to wear and seizure as a result of the dispersion of a large number of fine carbides and nitrides in the bearing material.In comparative tests with bearings made of conventional materials, such as SUJ2 steel, the Super TF material structure has shown less than one third the rate of wear and a 40% increase in seizure resistance. Super-TF is used in products such as NSK's Extra Capacity Sealed Clean Roll Neck Bearings, a new design that delivers up to 34% extra load capacity and longer life (up to 2.7 times longer) under severe lubrication conditions.The Roll Neck Bearings are designed for supporting rolls in the rolling mills of steelworks.They are required to achieve longer life while experiencing the adverse conditions of high loading, extreme shock loads, and water and scale ingress, which because of its effect on lubricating conditions, probably affects bearing life the most. Working with your customers often involved with custom made... Complementing Super-TF for use in continuous casting machines and rolling mills, is Water Tough WTF, a bearing material that achieves approximately three times the service life of conventional bearing materials in water-contaminated operating environments such as steel mills.WTF is the result of NSK's research into roll neck bearings for use in steel mills.The operating conditions of these bearings are particularly tough.Water-infiltrated lubrication and the ingress of foreign particles, such as scale, can cause flaking of the rolling contact surfaces of the bearings, reducing their service life and often resulting in premature failure.