Tough, Durable, Versatile, and Cost-Effective: Seal Rings and Bearings from Advanced Ceramics
Wherever fluids are pumped, compressed, or stirred, bearings and face seal rings are among those parts that are particularly important to design engineers. The type of material used for these parts has a profound impact on operational reliability and durability, especially when aggressive media are involved. Owing to their outstanding chemical and physical properties and their homogeneous microstructure, our advanced ceramics have in many instances displaced conventional materials.
Their functional reliability is caused by such factors as:
- High wear resistance
- Corrosion resistance
- Ability to withstand high temperatures
- Imperviousness to sudden fluctuations in temperature
Through different combinations of aluminum oxides and silicon carbides, we are able to fine-tune the sliding and sealing properties of our seal rings and bearings to closely match the actual operating environments. Combined bearings from advanced ceramics are remarkably light and stiff, displaying low centrifugal force and good emergency and dry running properties.
Our range of face seal rings and bearings include a wide array of different designs, at diameters from just a few millimeters to around 900 mm, mainly from silicon carbide (SiC). Also, we offer customers our expertise to develop and build designs and shapes to individual specifications and requirements.
Silicon Carbide and Aluminum Oxide to Improve Performance and Extend Service-Life for the Widest Range of Pumps from Automotive to Domestic Applications
Switching from plastics to advanced ceramics in seal rings and bearings – silicon carbide or aluminum oxide, dependent on use – plays an important role in the automotive industry. Excelling in wear resistance, dimensional stability, and reducing moving mass, our seal rings and bearings continue to improve performance, reduce noise emission levels, and extend the service-life of pumps in automotive components such as coolant-water pumps, electric fuel pumps, or high-pressure pumps in diesel engines.
Our advanced ceramics also prove highly effective in containment shells, or shrouds, for magnetic clutch pumps without shaft seals. For some applications, and under certain threshold constraints, only leak-proof pumps such as magnetic clutch pumps can be employed, which transmit drive power to the pump shaft without any contact. Since the shroud separates the outer and inner magnet assemblies, it has to consist of non-magnetic materials such as plastic, stainless steel, or ceramics. Plastic, in many cases, lacks the mechanical strength required, and silicon carbide wins out handily even over stainless steel in terms of hardness, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and long service life.
Particularly well suited for use in aggressive media, our ceramic seal rings and bearings are the prime choice for pumps commonly found in domestic appliances, or white goods or whiteware, such as washing machines and dishwashers. Here, again, advanced ceramics make all the difference: in productivity, dependability, durability, and operating expenses.
Extending the Service-Life of Gas Exhaust Valves with Components Made from Zirconium Oxide
For gas exhaust valves, our zirconium oxide is particularly well suited. Its excellent surface finish, high strength, low modulus of elasticity, and high sliding abrasion resistance combine with a thermal expansion coefficient comparable to steel, which makes it an ideal material for composite steel bearings working at high temperatures.
Taking On Our Customers’ Toughest Challenges: ROCAR® Silicon Carbide for Industrial Applications
Material consumption is exceedingly high in industrial and chemical installations, machinery for the food industry, and turbine and heat technology. So are the costs: metal components reach their limits rather quickly in an aggressive environment where multiple stress factors such as high thermal loads, friction, wear, and corrosion combine or even interact with each other.
Under such conditions, metal components are no match for our advanced ceramics ROCAR® Silicon Carbide. It is exceptionally hard, wear-resistant, and provides good thermal conductivity. Corrosion, abrasion, and fluid erosion are kept in check just as effectively as frictional wear.
Components made of ROCAR® Silicon Carbide are employed, for instance, in chemical installations, mills, expanders and extruders, and as nozzles. Moreover, ROCAR® Silicon Carbide is toxicologically safe and suited for applications in the food sector.