iglidur® plain bearing in ship doors

Profile

What was needed: 
Plain bearings for yacht door hinges

Requirements: 
Seawater-resistant, corrosion-free, suitable for high loads, good sliding properties

Industry: 
Shipbuilding

Success for the customer: 
Quickly deliverable and cost-effective plain bearing solution that meets all requirements.  

Problem:

The company Lethe was looking for plain bearings that could withstand both environmental conditions, e. g., contact with seawater and high loads as well as meeting the demands of high-quality design.

Solution:

iglidur G plain bearings can be used in the prevailing environmental conditions and fit into the high-quality design of Lethe ship doors, as they do not require any additional lubricant and the door hinges are thus always clean.

Ship doors, such as those manufactured by Lethe Exterior Doors GmbH, must be extremely well sealed and able to withstand high water pressure, even on the inside. Equally important is fire protection. Here, the doors take on the task of separating fire protection segments from one another.

The design additionally plays a very big role. Vice President Axel Kruse: "We never manufacture 'off the shelf' products. Our doors are basically customised to match the appearance of the yacht." The rules and regulations of shipbuilding must be observed. Here, the motto is "the bigger the yachts, the stricter the regulations."
 
Lethe not only designs and manufactures the doors, including frames, but also installs and adjusts them on site. Maintenance hatches and so on are also part of the package, as are electrically operated sliding doors, with large and correspondingly heavy door panels and yet smooth-running guidances. Another field of application is sliding wind breakers, which are also electrically operated.

Seawater resistance is a prerequisite for the hinges, as is the perfect appearance of the high-quality visible parts made of hand-polished stainless steel and smooth operation even when the door weighs a lot.

Axel Kruse: "Anyone who has a 70 or 100-metre yacht built expects that." In addition to the freedom from tension, it is above all the plain bearings in the door bolts that enable smooth operation. A very high load acts on them on a very small area of a few square millimetres, which must nevertheless be easily movable in the rotary axis.

In the door hinges, Lethe uses coil-free igus plain bearings made of the high-performance polymer iglidur G. There are several good reasons for this. Axel Kruse: "This material is seawater-resistant, corrosion-free, very resilient and it offers very good sliding properties. Lubrication-free operation is very important - if only because of its appearance. And with their black colour, the bearings blend well with the design of the hinge."