Plastic bearings used in Powerbully tracked vehicle wins gold manus^® award

In search of the right material

"Due to the positive experiences with igus plain bearings in other projects, I approached Reiner Nusser at igus in May 2020," recalls Marius Holder. "We then set up a trial test with three different igus materials, as well as a metallic bearing and the previous turned bearing of the competitor, and did a long-term test under real conditions on the shaft from Kässbohrer,"  explains Reiner Nusser, Technical Sales Consultant at igus GmbH.

"Here, iglide TX1 turned out to be the optimal material for use in the PowerBully." The tests were carried out on the standard heavy-load pivoting test rigs in the in-house 3,800 square metre igus laboratory in Cologne. To determine the wear rate, the inner diameter of the bearings was measured before and after the test using an outside micrometre. The test shows that TX1 has a service life eight times longer than the previous plain bearing. In numbers: the turned plastic bearing has the highest wear rate in dry condition with approx. 832µm/km, while iglidur Q2 has the lowest with approx. 73.5µm/km. In lubricated condition, the metallic bearing shows the highest wear rate (approx. 199µm/km), iglide TX1 the lowest (approx. 70µm/km).