Questions about bearings and castings for mining industry

[dshore]

Is anyone familiar with the maintenance and life span of "high lead copper alloy" bearings that are used in the mining industry/crushing machinery. Photo of one large bushing attached, but also interested in the "cone crusher" castings.

I am doing some research about the potential life cycle of these wear castings, so perhaps a PM might be the best way to respond.

Thank you in advance.
David

 

[3DDave]

Not too much about those use cases, but I have seen similar bearings that are used with grease and would recommend not using grease. The thickener in the grease remains after the oil leaves so unless the bearing is torn down each time there is no way to push the no-longer grease out of the grooves or the clearance in the bearing. After some period of time that is difficult to predict, one might as well just pack it with thickener because no oil is going anywhere near the bearing surfaces.

I mention this because I see large circular grooves with dead-end side grooves.

Think of grease as just oil with fine silt moving slowly and letting the oil seep away. Once that happens it's tending towards bare metal.

It would be interesting to see the life of a bearing where the grooves were packed with oil saturated felt with a drip oiler to make up for loss.