Custom Bearing Design
The company offers a comprehensive catalogue of standard products, while it also prides itself on an innovative, bespoke design and manufacturing service.
Barden bearing design is based on knowledge, gained over 75 years of specialisation in the field of precision bearings. Creativity is central to the Barden ethos, where engineers use imagination and expertise to develop new ideas and conceive solutions never previously thought of.
Engineering Capability
Barden design engineers work closely with customers to develop unique bearing solutions with specialised features to meet application requirements and solve functional problems. Our innovations in special bearings range from nearly standard bearings with slightly modified dimensions to intricate assemblies which integrate the bearing function into a complete mechanism.
In many cases, the overall cost of equipment can be reduced by incorporating special or customised bearings. Hybrid bearings (with ceramic balls) in particular save costs by improving performance. For applications such as aerospace bearings, mating components can be integrated into the bearing, for example mounting flanges, gear teeth, spring carriers and integral O ring grooves. The performance and installation benefits to be gained from using custom-designed bearings include:
- Improved assembly reliability
- Enhanced rigidity or stability of the system
- Better location control through proper bearing orientation
- Reduction in handling operations and contamination
- Improved alignment of the rotating assembly
- Weight reduction
- Improved resistance to temperature extremes
- Reduction in tolerance stack up
To contact us about a bespoke bearing design click here.
Surface engineering
Engineering surfaces are neither flat, smooth or clean and when two surfaces come into contact, only a small percentage of the apparent surface area is actually supporting the load. This can result in high contact stresses, which lead to increased friction and wear of the component. Engineering the surface to combat this is desirable and can offer benefits including lower running costs and longer service intervals.
The use of surface engineering processes can effectively reduce the amount of wear on components. Common treatments include:
- Hard chrome coating
- Electroless nickel plating
- Hard anodising
- Arc evaporated titanium, nitride
- Carburising and carbo-nitriding
- Plasma nitriding
Anti-corrosion processes produce a surface that is less chemically reactive than the substrate material. Examples include:
- Hard chrome coating
- Galvanised zinc
- Zinc/nickel plating
- Titanium carbide
- Electroless nickel plating
- Titanium nitride
- Passivation treatments
In summary, a large number of coatings and surface treatments are available to combat friction, corrosion and wear. It is often difficult for designers to select the optimum process for a particular application and there may be a wide range of options offering reasonable solutions.
Working with recognised leaders in advanced coatings and surface treatments, we can provide specialised guidance on the selection of suitable treatments and processes to meet and surpass the demands of extreme environment bearing applications.
Non-Standard Bearings
The pressure to reduce costs in all areas of manufacturing means the integration of bearing systems into mating components is becoming increasingly common. The resulting assemblies are neater, quicker to put together and offer the additional benefits of reducing space, mass and problems of tolerance stack-up. Barden bearings for such integrated assemblies are often special designs, calling upon the highest levels of innovation to supply bespoke solutions to what can often be the most extreme operating conditions.
For us, key areas of non-standard product design are the close integration of new materials, surface engineering, lubrication and bearing seal technologies. With Barden's hybrid bearings, AMS5898 material is used successfully to combine superior corrosion and wear resistance with the ability to withstand higher dynamic loads than conventional bearing steels. Used in conjunction with ceramic balls, significant gains in bearing life and performance can be achieved. Using full complement bearings can increase load capabilities significantly, also improving performance.
Barden bearings also take the lead in surface engineering technology. The company works with recognised leaders in this field to provide advanced coatings and surface treatments that combat friction, prevent corrosion and reduce wear.
Lubrication plays a major role in any special bearing design. Our developments have concentrated on extending the speed and temperature capabilities of greases to enable the replacement of oil in high speed applications. This is important as removal of oil lubricating systems reduces component count, assembly time and overall system cost. In addition, grease lubrication meets the needs of many sectors for sealed-for-life operation.
Such developments have resulted in the introduction of Arcanol 75, a Polyurea based grease providing excellent critical run-in behaviour, high temperature stability, non-toxicity and favourable viscosity/temperature behaviour. This increasing use of grease in Barden special bearings has, in turn, resulted in the development of a new generation of seals to retain lubricant and stop contamination.
We are at the cutting-edge of bearing seal design, developing a solution to the previously problematic matter of fitting seals to standard angular contact bearings. It has done this with a revolutionary RSD seal, a unit that enables pump manufacturers and machine tool spindle builders to enjoy the benefits of grease lubrication with complete bearing interchangability.
The RSD seals have retention characteristics equal to standard seal designs but are fitted so that there is no contact with the bearing inner rings. As a result, friction is minimised and there is no rise in the operating temperature. The problem of ring distortion from seal radial pressure is also overcome, while the space between the balls serves as a grease reservoir.
More than 50% of Barden production is devoted to special bearings, many of which offer added value by reducing the number of adjacent component parts, optimising both cost and technical advantage.