A major US-based chemical production plant was experiencing repeated, premature bearing failures on the screw pumps in the titanium dioxide production process. The repetitive failures of the large bearings on these pumps created product quality problems and required eight pumps to be rebuilt every month, causing costly downtime at a rate of $400,000 per month.
NTN’s engineering and sales support team ran a comprehensive failure analysis of the plant’s screw pumps. They discovered that the competitor’s bearings were only lasting an average of one week due to a design with steel cages that could not stand up to the contaminated conditions.
Solution
NTN’s team concluded that the plant needed to change from bearings with steel cages to a product equipped with highly durable brass cages and prescribed NTN’s 3300 Series Maximum Capacity Type double-row angular contact ball bearings. Max Type double-row angular contact ball bearings are designed to provide higher load capabilities.
The Result
The Max Type double-row angular contact ball bearings successfully ran from installation to the plant’s regularly-scheduled, monthly preventative maintenance pump rebuilds.
The increased bearing life, reduced maintenance and other related costs, resulted in over $4.6 million in savings in just one year. The plant personnel were so satisfied with the improved lifetime of the screw pumps that they now only use NTN Max Type double-row angular contact ball bearings on these pumps.
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