To date, an international roofing tile manufacturer has equipped its conveyor belts at various locations worldwide with metal pillow block bearings. During the roofing tile manufacturing process the conveyor belt is subject to extreme levels of dirt contamination which caused breakdowns each week. The manufacturer searched for an alternative that avoided costly downtimes in its two-shift operations.
Beforehand - metal bearings
Dirty metal bearings with lubricant
When metal bearings were used, the conveyor belts failed on a regular basis. As the bearings had to be lubricated, dirt collected at the bearing points. This regularly caused the failures and downtime. A solution was required to make the manufacturing process more reliable and keep it running.
Afterwards – igubal® polymer bearings
The solution: bearings made of high-performance polymers
Since the metal bearings were replaced by self-lubricating igubal® spherical bearings with dry lubricants, there were no longer any hurdles to non-stop operation of the plant. At 70–80 rpm, the conveyor belts with the igubal® bearings have now been running fault-free for weeks. igubal® bearings have a particularly durable and and their service life is tested in the igus® test laboratory.
