PCD wear parts for the bearing industry
Abrasive Technology has extensive experience in the design and manufacture of wear parts for the bearing industry. For ten years we have built up unrivalled experience in the engineering and economies of PCD wear parts. A significant proportion of our wear parts sales is to export markets, an indication of the depth of skill retained in the Company.
While the majority of applications apply to the bearing industry, other industries have taken up the technology, most notably the automotive component industry.
Current Products
Examples of PCD wear parts currently in production are:
- Vee Supports
- Backing Plates
- Gauging Fingers
- Gauging Points
- Back Stops
- Face Grinding
- PCD Rings
Benefits
The life of PCD components is typically 100 times that of the Carbide or ASS predecessor. This gives very substantial benefits to the end user:
- Reduced whole life costs
- Reduced downtime
- Reduced changeover times
- Increased component accuracy
On the component cast alone the PCD will be much cheaper than any alternative material. Therefore the savings in reducing downtime and changeover time became a substantial bonus.
The low friction coefficiency of PCD, together with its ultra hardness, ensures that high levels of component accuracy are maintained over the life of the component.
Development Process
Abrasive Technology does not carry a standard range of wear parts. Each is custom designed in conjunction with our customer’s engineering staff.
Our experience has shown that simply replacing existing materials (e.g. Carbide) with PCD is rarely the solution. Diamond has different physical and mechanical characteristics and these have to be taken into account for a successful solution.
Successful design, therefore requires a clear understanding of the customer's engineering and production requirements before arriving at the design.
Invariably our first joint developments into PCD wear parts leads to a rolling program, applying the technology to a large variety of applications as budgeting constraints allow.