Developed by SKF and called the Generalised Bearing Life Model, GBLM has been designed to ensure that customers and distributors choose ‘the right bearing for the right application’, every time.
The company says that it has been difficult until now for engineers to predict whether a hybrid bearing will out-perform a steel one in a given application, or whether the possible performance benefits that hybrid bearings provide are worth the extra investment they require.
It says the conventional equations used by engineers to calculate the rating life of a bearing do not reflect the real-world performance of hybrid designs; and that to rectify this issue, its engineers started in 2012 to develop what would become the GBLM.
A primary version was presented at the Hannover Messe in 2015, but it was not sufficiently developed to undertake calculations for hybrid bearings.
A further four years of development work was needed by scientists and technicians at SKF’s facilities in the Netherlands and Austria to incorporate this feature into GBLM, allowing the real-world benefits of hybrid bearings to be determined.
For instance, in the case of a poorly lubricated pump bearing, the ‘rating life’ of a hybrid bearing can be up to eight-times that of a steel equivalent; and for a screw compressor bearing running with contaminated lubricant, the hybrid bearing offers a rating life 100-times greater than a conventional steel bearing.
Guillermo Morales-Espejel, principal R&D scientist at SKF, said: “SKF has always been at the forefront of developing new methods for calculating bearing life.
“GBLM is a giant leap for bearing science and will enable better choices to be made when selecting bearings for a wide variety of applications.”
Further details can be found at the Web site (
www.skfbearingselect.com).