Lubricating Ball Bearings: Don't Get Carried Away

As strong as ball bearings are made, there are many things that influence their effect on rotating machinery. Poor alignment, rapidly aging bases, shaft voltage, and improper lubrication are the more common reason for bearing failure. If the bearings fail, invariably your rotating machine will fail.

Unless a plant has its own maintenance department, services companies, such as L&S Electric, are contracted to perform laser shaft alignment, make base modifications, and test for shaft voltage. When it comes to lubrication, however, you may be on your own.

Usually, equipment manufacturers provide lubrication schedules to follow for maintenance. For example, Marathon Electric created this lubrication interval procedure for their electric motors. However, what would happen if there were no documentation providing any information regarding lubrication? One result may lead to over-greasing, which may lead to contamination leading to failure. The photo on the right was taken in one of our service centers and provides an excellent example of over-greasing a motor.

Luckily, responsible bearing manufacturers, such as Spherical Roller Bearings Company, provide information regarding best practices in lubricating bearings. Rajit Sharma, from  MBP Bearings.

In many grease lubricated bearing applications, the service life of the grease exceeds the bearing life, so that no grease needs to be added during the bearing life. For such applications MBP Bearings provides greased bearings and bearing units with integral seals or shields, which are suitable for maintenance-free operation. Consider though, to which life would the grease be suitable; is it the life of the machine, the life of the bearing or the life of the grease?

In order to judge if a maintenance-free solution is possible, the grease service life is estimated from operating parameters in open bearings, designed to be re-lubricated, this calculation produces the re-lubrication interval. The main factors that determine the grease service life (re-lubrication interval) are the bearing type and size, speed operating temperature, grease type and the bearing environment (orientation, rotation, cleanliness, ambient temperature, vibration, etc). The same calculation applies to sealed and shielded bearings.

Never expect grease in an operating bearing to last longer than grease on the shelf in a sealed container. Shelf life is a special case and considers the chemical make up of the lubricant as well as storage in a properly sealed container in a properly controlled environment.

How much grease is enough? That is the title of a related article at the Machine Lubrication site.

Several factors influence the quantity of grease that would go into a bearing at the selected interval. Critical factors include:

1.Design of the bearing (plain, roller, ball or spherical roller).
2.Type of shield used in the bearing.
3.Size and speed from which to calculate dN values.
4.Viscosity of the lubricant in the grease.

The Dodge Type-E bearing has a shield and lip seal configuration, with an option for an additional two-stage lip seal. This type of seal, by design, will allow for discharge of grease without damage at the outer perimeter of the seal. You could consider this a type of shielded bearing configuration.

A sealed bearing is not designed to be purged. If you apply too much grease too quickly, you can rupture the seal and compromise the life of the bearing.

The decision to flood or purge a bearing should be taken within the context of bearing construction, production environment and OEM guidelines. This is rarely a simple question.

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Explorer class bearings promise faster speeds & improved reliability

Explorer high-performance, long-life bearings range now includes an improved single-row angular contact ball bearing that delivers a number of benefits for designers and operators of screw compressors, pumps, and gearboxes seeking to reduce the total cost of ownership of this equipment through improved reliability and energy efficiency.

Featuring a redesigned brass cage that delivers reduced noise and vibration levels and improved robustness, the new 40° contact angle bearings significantly increase the limiting speed up to 30 % compared to the previous design.

The new cage geometry and the use of stronger brass material reduce cage contact forces and increase cage strength, ensuring greater tolerance of shock loads and vibration, while delivering the significantly higher speed capability even under severe operating conditions.

In addition to the redesigned 40° contact angle, a new contact angle of 25° is also offered, giving the bearing a further 20% increase in speed over that of the 40° version, while enabling higher radial loads to be accommodated. In each case, the ball-to-cage contact arrangement allows cooler running and greater temperature stability, while noise and vibration levels are reduced by 15% in both the 40° and 25° versions.

Sealed variants of these bearings are also available for applications that may be more difficult to maintain, preventing contaminants from entering the bearing during installation and subsequent operation. Bearing arrangements that include a 40° contact angle unit taking the main load with a 25° unit acting as a back-up bearing offer improved robustness for applications where the axial load is predominantly in one direction, resulting in longer service life.

Explorer class bearings are the result of years of development and accrued expertise in bearing design, tribology, metallurgy, lubrication and machining techniques. The new 40° and 25° Explorer class single row angular contact ball bearings are an attractive option for operators of screw compressors, pumps and gearboxes seeking cooler running, more energy efficient and longer life bearings that will ultimately set their products apart from the competition.

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How to Find Bearing Numbers by Size

Bearing part numbers help you to identify the type, size and general uses for a bearing. The part number is usually stamped or printed on the bearing. There are three different types of bearings. Ball bearings are loose spheres that separate the races in a bearing. Roller bearings are circular shaped and function the same way as ball bearings. A needle bearing uses rollers to reduce friction. Occasionally, you may need to replace a bearing, but due to wear and accumulation of dirt, the part number may not be legible. You can identify the replacement bearing by the bearing measurements.

Step 1

Calibrate the micrometer you will use to measure the bearing. Open the micrometer and fit the gauge block between the measuring tips. Turn the thimble to close the micrometer until the measuring tips contact the block. Read the measurement to ensure a margin of error that is no more than plus or minus 0.0005.

Step 2

Write the following in a column on a piece of paper: d =, D=, B/T=. Make a notation at the bottom of the paper that d=inside diameter, D = outside diameter and B/T = width diameter.

Step 3

Measure the inside diameter first. Open the micrometer to the approximate size of the inside opening. Slowly adjust the micrometer until the measuring surface on each side of the micrometer makes contact with each side of the inside opening. Write down the measurement on your paper.

Step 4

Clear away buildup of grime and debris on the outside of the bearing to ensure a more accurate measurement. Measure the outside diameter of the bearing using the same technique in step 2. Write this measurement on your paper using a capital letter "D" for reference.

Step 5

Measure the width of the bearing using the same technique described in step 2. Write down the width measurement noted as "B/T".

Step 6

Use the measurements to find the part number at a bearing dealer, or enter the measurements at a bearing dealer website to search for your part number.

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Bermuda Governor hosts Joyce Banda, UN diplomats ahead of sexual and reproductive rights meet

Issues about gender equality, sexual and reproductive health (SRH), services and comprehensive sexuality education must be given special attention by the international community to ensure the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, Bermudian Governor John Rankin has said.

The Governor of Bermuda, who is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda, was speaking at a reception he hosted at his official residence in Bermuda on Friday, December 9, 2016, in honour of former Malawi’s former President Joyce Banda and a group of diplomats representing country missions to the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York.

This was ahead of a high-level meeting on issues related to gender equality, women's and girls' human rights and  sexual and reproductive health and rights (December 10-11, 2016) where Banda was Keynote Speaker.

Governor Rankin hailed the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) for organizing the Bermuda meeting, noting that for people to attain the highest standard of health across the world, they must first be empowered to exercise choice in their sexual and reproductive lives and this can only be achieved when advocacy and education initiatives are heightened.

Speaking on Saturday at Grotto Bay Beach Resort, former President Banda noted that the meeting was a “testament of the incredibly relentless work done over the years by civil society, research and advocacy groups, governments, and policy-makers to bring the rightful relevance to the sexual rights and health of girls around the world”.

Banda spoke about the challenges that girls aged 0 to 10 years old face at household level and in the community that negatively affects their education and adulthood in the context of gender equality, women's and girls' human rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

“We should not wait until adolescence to advocate for the rights of the girl child. It is between ages 0 and 10 is when girls are molded by dangerous behaviors and mindsets about the value of a girl. It is at this age when underinvestment in the girl child’s education begins; where her sole destiny as future wife and mother are decided,” Banda said.

She cited harmful cultural practices, traditions and socialization norms within the household as some of the main challenges that negatively affect the growth and development of the girl child.

“When the incomes are low at household level, it is the boy who goes to school at the expense of the girl; the girl child is subjected to dangerous harmful practices and traditions and the trauma she is subjected to negatively affects her future,” Banda said.

Governments must renew their commitment to passing and enforcing laws to protect the girl child’s rights to safety and dignity and that the civil society, development partners, and local community leaders to engage in the tremendous undertaking of educating families and shifting broader mindsets and beliefs, she said.

“What we have is fundamentally a mindset challenge. We have discussed harmful cultural practices often in connection to other issues like education, gender based violence and discrimination. But we are yet to tackle it head on, which I know seems deeply overwhelming and impossible, but is in fact doable. How? The first step is to research how to better use existing power hierarchies at the community level to change behaviors.

“When I took office as President in 2012, 675 Malawian women died per 100,000 live births. In the rural areas where we saw the highest incidence of maternal death, there were many myths and taboos surrounding pregnancy, which often kept women from seeking proper healthcare and opting to deliver in their homes without trained birth attendants.

“In addition to investing in clinical infrastructure, our biggest challenge was to change mindsets and norms surrounding childbirth. To achieve this, we mobilized more than 12,000 traditional village leaders to educate women, demystify pregnancy, and enforce the government’s ban on home birth. Instead of criminalizing traditional birth attendants, we recruited them to act as community advisors for pregnant women and young girls,” said former President Banda.

Banda is currently a Distinguished Fellow at Woodrow Wilson Centre where her research tackles issues of women’s leadership as well as at the Center for Global Development (CGD) researching on girl education in Washington DC.

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Ad Agencies of Today

There’s always a competition for business across agencies, but perhaps nothing so dramatic,” said Karen Kavanagh, Coordinator  of Algonquin’s Advertising and Marketing Communications  Management program. “What Mad Men did portray well is the  high energy of creative work, the struggle of coming up with great ideas. The  ideas are still core to everything an ad agency does.”

Nowadays it’s far more than a print ad with a slogan that sells the idea. Modern campaigns are steeped in experiential advertising, event planning,  and social media. All these aspects support campaigns that are still focused  on the Big Idea, one Don Draper might have pulled from his back pocket.



It’s always a crew of people, working together, that gets the job done

No current agency is held afloat by the work of one person alone. It’s always a crew of people, working together, that gets the job done.

“Generally a traditional agency has a creative team, a strategic team, and a marketing team with several different positions in each,” said Kavanagh.  “Ideas come from everywhere and all those people depend on one another.”

After graduating from Algonquin College’s two-year Advertising program in 1995, Kavanagh moved to Toronto to work with Echo Advertising and a  few other firms. Four years later, she returned to Ottawa where, among other things, she taught one class per term at Algonquin, becoming a full-time employee in 2011.

The program she coordinates has since added Marketing Communications Management to its prior focus on advertising, besides adding a third  year of study. Its curriculum helps her students develop the skills to work well  with others, and to think quickly and strategically. But even well prepared  students may find ad agency work tough, she points out, even without a Pete  Campbell breathing down your neck.

Decide whether to serve a narrow or broad  field

“It can be intimidating when you first get hired,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to share your ideas, and be aware that you’ve been hired for your input as well as your skills.”for more info, check out avant career

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Indian American students create app for on-demand tutors

Two Indian-American computer science students in the US have created an education app that helps college students connect with tutors in the locality.   Described as The Uber for Tutors, the Scholarly app available as a free download on Google Play and in the Apple App Store helps users view tutor profiles, set meeting locations, and get help with their studies at the click of a button.     The app, that won the first place at the worlds largest education Hackathon in October, has been created by Sultan Khan and Haasith Sanka of the University of California, Riverside (UCR).

The way it works is simple: tutors create profiles, which can be viewed by students looking for help in a certain subject. After setting a meeting location, the two parties can meet to untangle whatever academic knot a student is wrestling with.   In addition to being easy, its mutually beneficial.     Tutors can earn extra cash, while students can get the academic help they need all with no middle man other than a smartphone.   The duo hope the on-demand tutoring service will help fellow students.   We both believe that one-on-one tutoring is beneficial, so we are proud to have created something that will contribute to students success, said Sanka.   The duo developed the android version of Scholarly at Hacking EDU in last October. The competition drew more than 1,000 hackers from universities around the world. Within a 36-hour time-frame, students were challenged to turn their ideas into functional software that would improve the education system.   After presenting Scholarly to a panel of judges, Khan and Sanka ultimately left with a first place ranking for their app. Since then, the two have been working to improve the android app and create the iOS version.

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Top 5 Pro Clutch Company in India

1. edx
 The Schaeffler Group has one of the widest product portfolios in the rolling bearing industry, covering nearly all applications. The joint catalogue of standard products includes more than 40,000 products which are supplied to 60 different sectors. Schaeffler also offers a comprehensive range of services for advice, diagnostics, maintenance and mounting rolling bearings and complete systems. Additional success factors are the highest quality, employee orientation, exemplary environmental protection and sustained, long-term and targeted development of the company.

2. ARB-Bearings
ARB Bearings is India’s leading bearing manufacturer company. The company was incorporated in 1990 and its headquartered at Delhi. It is run by professionals with over forty years of experience in the bearing industries.With in a short duration since inception, the company has carved a niche for itself in various segments ranging from automobiles to industrial machinery to household appliances.
http://arb-bearings.com

 
3. rvbearings
R&V Bearings Supplies is currently one of the leading importers and distributors of bearings and associated engineering accessories. We place great emphasis on product quality, service and professionalism since 1990 offering a 24Hr service in the event of a break down
 
4. bearingsdistributors
Bearings Distributors was established in South Africa in 1953. Initially the company was purely a trading concern and would purchase locally to supply it’s predominantly end-user based customers with various engineering spares. Over the years the markets changed drastically and with this the need for additional products and brands became a necessity to service the requirements of a rapidly growing customer base.

5. Bearingtradecentre
We are an eminent entity engaged in manufacturing and supplying heavy duty Deep groove ball bearings . The entire production process of these products are carried out under the supervision of our team members along with advanced machinery. These raw-material and steel are obtained from the most trusted and reliable vendors in the market, therefore these products are non-corrosive.

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