New Robust Seal for Grinders

Swedish ball bearing manufacturer SKF required only four months to design a customer-specific seal for a Swedish manufacturer of floor grinding machines. This extremely robust solution will prolong the grinding machines' lifespan.

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Swedish manufacturer Scanmaskin wants to achieve a service life of up to 20 years in its latest generation of grinding machines. For this reason, the company has included experts for seals from SKF in the development process of its so-called "World Series". Paolo Bergstrand, CEO of Scanmaskin explains: "Professional floor grinders operate in harsh conditions, with dust being a major issue for machine reliability and performance. The machines need to withstand being used on rough and uneven surfaces without compromising on efficiency, calculated by the amount of surface area one can grind per hour of operation. This means that the machine's seal plays a decisive role in achieving the desired level of efficiency."

Increased wear resistance

SKF experts only had four months left to design and produce a custom-fit seal. In their search for a solution that had to be both durable and available at short notice, they modified a concept that originally came from heavy industry. The company had already developed its own Duralip material for applications in which abrasives such as sand, earth or lime could reach the seal counterface on the shaft. The material used here was a carboxylated acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (XNBR). The material SKF uses for its heavy industrial seals combines acrylonitrile butadiene rubber's good technical properties with increased wear resistance. 

Not only is the seal meant to protect the driveline from contamination, but also resist possible damage during drive belt changes. It also had to be made heat resistant to withstand the higher temperatures during continuous operation.