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Failure Analysis & Advice on Roller Bearings in Rotary Kilns

Release time : 2022-06-20 09:22:45    

Lily Bearing has a long-standing reputation in making roller bearings. High-quality roller bearings as well as its top-torch services have been well known by clients around the world. Not long ago, a regular client, who mainly produces rotary kilns, encountered a bearing problem.

In the process of daily inspection, the client’s mechanical specialists found that the lubricant discharged from the lubrication system of the equipment carried a large amount of metal powder. By means of a listening stick, they found that the original bearings had a strange sound during operation. In this case, Lilys experts were invited and rushed to the site to provide technical support in time. They did an analysis on the working conditions. After excluding the basic problems on the process of installation, they disassembled the equipment and inspected the internal conditions of it.


According to the on-site dismantling, the experts came up with the analysis result and proposed the solution. Due to the unreasonable bearing layout of the client's equipment, the verticality has long been in bad conditions and this resulted in uneven bearing forces, which caused a significant decrease in bearing life. The experts suggested replacing the original bearings with  alignable bearings.

After a rigorous test, the experts suggested that the client should change original bearings with spherical roller bearings as well as spherical roller thrust bearings. They also explained, The shell temperature of a rotary kiln furnace can reach 400°C. This temperature can reduce the viscosity of the lubricant in the bearings and eventually lead to failure. More importantly, the constant tumbling load, dust and outdoor conditions can lead to shaft misalignment, bearing contamination and other failures. In the face of this situation, spherical roller bearings and spherical roller thrust bearings are better choices...

roller bearings

“Our spherical roller bearings, which have high load carrying capacity and ability to adapt to misalignment, can deal with high axial loads and radial loads and can be in the applications prone to axis shifts or misalignment. Meanwhile, spherical roller bearings can permit rotation with low friction and angular misalignment. With these characters, spherical roller bearings can help obtain low maintenance costs and thus ensure a long life. What’s more, spherical roller thrust bearings are proper. The reason is that spherical roller thrust bearings are quite the perfect combination of specially designed raceways as well as asymmetrical rollers. They can bear not only axial loads from one direction but also simultaneously acting radial loads... The two kinds of roller bearings are uniquely designed to manage both thrust and radial loads on the rotating shaft and housing...”

After using for a period of time, Lily's experts received positive feedback. Rotary Kiln have been running well since the two kinds of special roller bearings were put into use. The perfect combination of spherical roller bearings and spherical roller thrust bearings successfully improved the bearing life of the shaft system and won the praise from clients.