The Powder Metallurgy (PM) industry continues to make advances in the performance of one of its longest established products, sintered self-lubricating bearings. AMES SA, headquartered in Sant Feliu de LLobregat, Spain, is one of Europe’s leading PM part and self-lubricating bearing producers, and the company reported at the PM2014 World Congress, Orlando, USA, May 19-22, that it has developed a new bearing design designated with the trade name LCF® (low friction coefficient).

It is claimed that the new bearing design not only improves the friction coefficient but also reduces wear and increases bearing life. Francesc Cabestany stated in a presentation that the new bearing design involves the use of a double layer sintered porous bearing with an external copper-base layer providing the contact area between the axle or shaft and bearing.

The developed Cu-base external layer is said to facilitate the rapid formation of a hydrodynamic oil film during running-in with the resulting reduction in the coefficient of friction to very low levels (<0.05) in a few seconds. Due to these low values of friction coefficient, Cabestany said that initial power consumption of the system during repeated start-ups can be significantly reduced.

A further enhancement of the performance of the new design of sintered bearings has been made by adding oil wedges to the inner diameter of the double layer bearing, a variant that AMES calls LCF-Z®.

www.ames.es 

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