Dust and Bearings – A fatal combo?!

Dust is everywhere. It is in the air that we breathe. In some cases, there is even a lot of dust. Think about sand from Sahara brought to Europe with the wind or a volcano, as the one in Iceland that brought our life to a stop a few years ago. And there is dust in industrial applications, for example when metal is machined, when concrete is made and cut or in mining. Also papermaking produces plenty of dust in some areas of production. What all these applications have in common: They need bearings.?

An increased life time is always a good thing to have, as downtimes are reduced and costly repairs occur less often. But how can the life time of a bearing be increased in dusty environments? NSK is following two paths to do that. The first one is to keep the dust out of the bearing. Therefore, sealings are the method of choice. When a sealing is used, one or more lips made of a special sealing material glide over a surface with a certain amount of pressure, so that a constant contact between sealinglip and its counterpart is guaranteed. Depending on the amount of dust in the application, there can be up to eight seals in a bearing. That, on the one hand, reliably keeps dust out of the bearing. On the other hand it increases friction, as the rubber and the moving part of the bearing touch each other permanently. So the right amount of sealing for the application at hand is crucial. NSK has plenty of experience with that issue und can advise on the best suited sealing solution.

The other path to increase the lifetime of a bearing is to make it more resistant against ingress of dirt. NSK′s Super TF steel does just that. A special heat treatment makes the surface more ductile by a constantly high hardness, so that damages in the raceways caused by dirt particles can cure themselves without causing further cracks. The result of that is a significantly longer lifetime in contaminated environments.

If you want to learn more about our Super TF Steel Bearings or the different options for sealing that we offer, you can always get in touch via LinkedIn or www.nsk.com/eu-en