Bearing down on milk plant costs

London -NSK estimates that its solid lubricant bearings are providing cost savings of almost £10,000 a year, as a result of solving a problem of premature bearing failure on an IHT conveyor at a UK milk processing plant.

The cause of the problem on the conveyor was inaccessible bearings that were impossible to lubricate. As a result, engineers were changing bearings every 10 weeks, resulting in combined downtime, labour and equipment costs of £9,922 annually.

Under an initiative to source more durable bearings, an NSK engineer quickly identified the problem to be water washout, which is extremely common in food processing applications. This is the tendency of lubricant to be flushed out of conventional bearings under repeated washdowns. The loss of lubricant is usually progressive rather than immediate; but the result is inevitably the same: premature failure of the bearing or bearings concerned.

Through its work with majors in the food & beverage industry on this problem, NSK has developed Molded Oil bearings, which employ a special solid lubricant that effectively addresses loss of lubricant due to washdowns. These are claimed to significantly increase the operating life of grease lubrication in water contaminated environments.

According to NSK, the technology also means that operating environments are kept free of grease; and there is no need for refilling of lubricant, as the bearing provides a continuous supply of lubricating oil.