Software offers bearing selection flexibility

Whether it's a replacement, design improvement or consideration for a new design, selecting the appropriate bearings that provide optimal performance is critical.

and improves design time Whether it's a replacement, design improvement or consideration for a new design, selecting the appropriate bearings that provide optimal performance is critical.

Although it can be a time-consuming task, bearing catalogs and complex calculations will certainly get the job done.

To better maximize its engineering capability, Lufkin Industries, a leading supplier of oil field pumping units, industrial gears, foundry castings and truck trailers, has technology on its side to take the complexity out of selecting the right bearing for the job.

Developed by The Timken Company, the Tapered Roller Bearing Selection Guide (TRBSG) version 2.0, provides Lufkin's Power Transmission Division access to data and calculations.

The guide also offers the ability to model bearing applications or to generate automated bearing selection alternatives consistent with size and performance requirements of its customers' applications.

Having access to in-depth bearing information and calculations helps design and application engineers calculate bearing life based on a variety of criteria.

The resulting data can be saved in electronic, print or report form.

Without having to draw bearing designs from scratch, the software enables companies like Lufkin to review built-in examples, create new designs and, over time, build a library of previous work that can easily be modified for new projects.

"Some applications are so demanding and specific, that we need to know if a bearing is available to match a request before we can even quote it," said Chris Peterson, manager of applications engineering , PT Division at Lufkin.

"Before this software was implemented here, we would go back and forth a number of times with manufacturers to find the best bearing for the job".

"The value of this software is that now we have the information we need at our fingertips and can quickly review a large number of Timken bearings to find ones that work so we can get results and answers to our customers." "The software we create and distribute worldwide ensures that, regardless of location, our sales and application engineers can provide the same product data and calculated results to our customers," said Svens Milenbachs, application analysis software manager - Timken.

"Our primary mission in developing this software for customers was to create an easy-to-use tool that helps improve our customers' performance".

"Although it's a rather comprehensive and sophisticated software program, the user interface makes it very simple to navigate and allows our customers to get results quickly." Peterson shared that sometimes the program will provide 30 or more bearings that may fit the needs of the design.

In other cases, it returns just one or two bearings that would serve as acceptable candidates.

In such instances, he knows his team can turn to Timken for further evaluation and feedback from a commercial and delivery standpoint.

"The old methods certainly worked, but our team could spend hours going through the process," Peterson said.

"This software not only saves us costs in time, but it helps us find bearings for extreme applications that we may not have otherwise known were available".

"That kind of value means we can produce better designs to our customers, do it faster than ever before and win business because of it.".

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