The FAG split spherical roller bearings offered by Schaeffler Australia are engineered to radically simplify maintenance, reduce downtime and lower costs during bearing replacement in machinery and plant. Schaeffler’s FAG split bearings not only reduce downtime by 50% or more, but also save costs by eliminating the complex replacement procedures associated with solid bearings.

Easy-to-install split roller bearings improve uptime and profitability of a wide range of machinery and equipment used in industries such as mining, energy, oil and gas, construction, engineering, material handling, lifting technology, manufacturing, metalworking, HVAC, food and beverage, agribusiness processing, ports and cargo handling, heavy transport and rail, paper and primary production.

Mr Martin Grosvenor, Schaeffler Australia Industrial Segment and Product Manager, said split spherical roller bearings are primarily used where replacing non-split spherical roller bearings would require expensive replacement costs, including dismantling gears or couplings, dismantling drives or dismantling shaft drive trains. FAG split spherical roller bearings are particularly useful on shafts supported at several points and locations that are difficult to access, and are commonly found in applications such as worm gears, bucket and belt conveying equipment, material processing plants, motors, bucket wheel excavators and reclaimers, elevators, winches and pulleys, mixing and blending plants, mills and crushers, sintering plants, drum kilns, fans and ventilators, dust removal plants, drive shafts, ventilation plants, rolling mills, marine and paper machinery, and primary product and food and beverage processing.

Mr Grosvenor said that compared to solid bearings, FAG split spherical roller bearings reduce installation downtime by about 50% by eliminating very time-consuming replacement procedures such as mounting the drive component, installing the shaft assembly in the housing and connecting the drive component. He added that maintenance downtime can be further reduced to about 33% compared to solid bearings by further reducing the steps involved from ten to four, eliminating procedures such as disconnecting the drive component, disassembling the shaft assembly and removing the drive component from the shaft.

Premium FAG split spherical roller bearings from the Schaeffler Group ensure ongoing reliability and are supported in Australia with product selection and packaging solutions, installation expertise, online condition monitoring and lubrication technology for optimal performance. Key features of FAG split spherical roller bearings include metric and imperial shaft sizes; no need for major modifications to existing bearing housings; comparable load capacity and misalignment capabilities to solid bearings; quick and easy bearing replacement; single bearing design with fixed or floating end; and preset radial internal clearance, eliminating the need for feeler gauges. Key benefits include reduced replacement costs; maintaining existing shaft center height; no reduction in bearing life; proven design that accommodates high loads and misalignment; reduced downtime and maintenance costs; reduced inventory costs; and optimal clearance achieved by clamping the inner ring directly to the shaft with a high-strength hexagon socket screw.