Bearing control during operation

It is estimated that around 10 billion bearings are produced worldwide every year.

It is estimated that around 10 billion bearings are produced worldwide every year. Only a small part of these bearings actually fails or becomes damaged during use, to the extent that replacement is required. 90% of bearings operate the entire lifetime of the machine. 9.5% of the bearings were replaced for preventive reasons, especially in installations, where they put great emphasis on preventative maintenance. Only 0.5% of bearings are replaced due to damage or complete failure. But in figures this still means 50 million bearings annually that are damaged or broken.
The causes of damage or failure of bearings are as follows:

1/3 due to fatigue due to overload, improper servicing or neglecting the machines;
1/3 due to lubrication problems that may be in the form of an incorrect lubricant, incorrect amount of lubricant or incorrect lubrication intervals;
1/6 due to contamination as a result of poor or incorrect sealing;
1/6 for other reasons. This includes incorrect assembly, higher loads than calculations, improper fittings…

When to change the bearing?

How much time is spent between the onset of injury (initial injury) and complete failure of the bearing can vary greatly. It depends on operating conditions. At higher speeds, it is sufficient for a few seconds, while this time for larger bearings operating at low turns may take a few months to complete. The answer to the question "When to change the bearing" is not easy, and the easiest way to do this is by checking the condition of the bearings.
If the damaged bearings are not diagnosed and are not replaced before total failure, this can cause a lot of secondary damage to the machine and equipment. In the case of complete bearing failure, it is also usually impossible to detect the cause of the initial damage, which is usually possible with damaged bearings.

Bearing control

By checking the bearings, we can detect early damage on bearings in time, which enables the bearings to be replaced during scheduled congestion, thus avoiding expensive unplanned stagnation due to bearing failure and possible damage to other components of the machine.
The most important parameters for bearing condition monitoring are sound, temperature, vibration and lubrication control. All of these parameters can be monitored using SKF instruments and bearings control devices.

Measurements that are even more precise allow the technology to measure wrapping acceleration, which is beyond the purposes of this paper.

TKLT 10 digital thermometer TKTR 10 digital speedomete

For practical reasons, we can sometimes not control all machines or certain parts of the machine using state-of-the-art control devices. In these cases, it is necessary to rely on human senses, such as vision and sound, which, of course, has great constraints. When the sensation of the bearing is detected with the senses, it is often very large. The detection of injuries by means of state aid devices is considerably lighter and is detected in a significantly lower degree of damage to the bearing.

In the figure and diagram below, the individual stages of bearing damage and the individual stages of detecting these injuries are presented. Under the figure and diagram, a description of the individual phases is given.