Why igus has so many materials for bearing applications and how to choose the right bearing for your application. 

Shery George | 28 September 2022

igus and its iglidur range of motion plastic products are the world’s largest manufacturer of polymer plain bearings. In the blogs previous sessions, you saw how igus’s performance polymers are built and the trade name of this range of products as iglidur. With our years of research, constant blending of different components inside iglidur (Base polymers, solid lubricants, Fibers), and then testing them in our “world’s largest dry testing lab” for wear, we have created more than 120 plus materials. Each of these materials has come from the request of a customer who was not able to solve his application with igus’s most commonly used 5 standard materials. Which are iglidur G, iglidur W300, iglidur J, iglidur M250 and iglidur X.

igus has more than 21 materials that are standard available in the catalogue, the standard 5 materials have more than 100 plus different dimensions in both straight and collar type bearings. The other 16 standard range has more than 50 standard sizes, which allows customers to choose the right size for their application. However, with more than 45 materials in the catalogue how to choose the right material is always the big question we all faced.

We would like to take you forward in answering this question in two ways. 

igus from its Dry testing lab that we have mentioned earlier as part of material development and based on different requests from customer, test our bearings with different shaft materials mainly in three different kind of motions, Rotation, Oscillation, and Linear. We do more than 5000 such tests in our lab from 1986. This has given us a huge data base, which can be used as a back ground to predict any possible application and the best product for that. With the detail of this tests as back ground we have built a life calculation tool, which is a very easy to use tool. Please find the link to this tool: iglidur® expert system (igus.in)

Here you can start with a catalogue dimension or your specific dimension. You can key in your application data starting from load to speed, and environmental conditions (Application temperature, chemicals coming in contact, edge loads etc.) Then based on the test data at igus you will be given the possible solutions in the number of hours the bearing will run in your application.  You can then choose standard articles available and also optimize your selection based on cost to life ratio. 

Here is a small video from our product expert on how to use this calculator, and feel free to contact us if you need any help.

Another interesting way you can select igus materials is by using our sleeve samples for iglidur. This was an idea to make the selection of igus bearing easier. Here you have in a box all different igus materials and a set of cards with holes. These cards have specific details like, for applications with contact with food, With the temperature above 80 degrees, with Edge loads etc, you have more than 20 cards that you can use. These cards can be placed on top of another for example if you need a bearing for 80 degree C, and in contact with Food, you can place the card of Temperature above 80 degrees C, and Food contact on the box, and you can directly see the few selected bearings that can be used for your application.

You can order this box for free from here – https://content.communication.igus.net/en-in/free-sample-box-iglidur-improves

We know it is a long blog – the box and the life calculator is much easier to use than this long blog. However, if this is too long and you feel to talk to us please call us directly in the below number and speak to our specialist. 

Mr. Nitin Prakash Vibhandik

Product Manager iglidur® Bearings

Mobile: +91 7760368383

Email: nprakash@igus.net