Automotive technology solves agricultural dilemma

In a great example of technology transfer and product adaptability, SKF has taken a specialist automotive bearing design and used it to solve a problem in an agricultural application.

In a great example of technology transfer and product adaptability, SKF has taken a specialist bearing design, developed for the high-performance automotive sector, and used it to solve a problem in an agricultural application.

SKF worked with Vaderstadsverken of Sweden to replace the bearing arrangement on the ploughing system on its agricultural machines.

SKF's solution provided a more reliable and less costly product, which as well as being quality assured it was also simple to mount.

Vaderstadsverken is a leading supplier of agriculture appliances for both seed sowing and soil preparation.

The machines, manufactured in Sweden, Poland, Germany and France, are used across Europe in applications that demand comprehensive reliability and performance guarantees.

Vaderstadsverken's ploughing and sowing system consists of a number of concave discs for ploughing the soil and a series of flat discs that make the grooves in the earth into which the seeds are planted.

In the pre-SKF system, a double row angular contact ball bearing was mounted on a casted bearing housing.

The bearings were mounted on a shaft, which was attached to the frame of the machine.

Vaderstadsverken handled the assembly of the bearing unit, but found that the original bearing solution was time consuming to fit and the assembly process created a bottleneck in the manufacturing procedure.

Furthermore, because of the quantity of subcontracted parts, the process was difficult for the company to quality assure.

SKF's solution was based on a car wheel unit developed for high performance and high reliability use.

Designated the Hub Unit Two, it comprises a forged, flanged outer ring with internal surfaces that are turned, hardened, ground and polished to provide the best possible surface finish, and the inner ring of the bearing is designed to provide optimum carrying capacity.

The unit is filled with high performance grease and sealed at the manufacturing point.

This guarantees cleanliness and the appropriate lubrication, increasing the life expectancy of the equipment.

Furthermore, the SKF assembly process guarantees that the product not only meets the bearing giant's own rigorous quality assurance standards but also those of the automotive industry that the Hub Unit Two was originally conceived to service.

Its use in this agricultural application has resulted in a substantial improvement in performance.

Vaderstadsverken's involvement in the assembly process is now limited to attaching the Hub Unit to the frame of the machine using a shaft and a nut, both of which are provided by SKF.

This takes the assembly headache away from Vaderstadverken.

As well as being simple, this has the additional benefit of reducing the required tolerances and precision of adjacent parts.

Furthermore, there is no looseness of the discs, improving the overall performance of the machine.

Finally, thanks to SKF's manufacturing process, premature bearing breakdown as a consequence of preloaded bearings is eliminated.

Because Vaderstadsverken assembly method has been simplified, the bottleneck in the process has also been removed, resulting in an increased production capacity.

The process also reduced the number of suppliers to Vaderstadverken, thus reducing the associated costs.

"SKF wanted to be part of the customer's own development team on this project", said Phil Burge, Marketing Manager of SKF UK.

"Vaderstadverken's problem evidently arose because the previous bearing supplier was just that - a supplier.

SKF was able to provide something more - a degree of openness in the technical development process, which resulted in lower costs and a more efficient machine.

By doing this we offer something much more valuable than a commodity product".

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