Highly wear-resistant plain bearings for maintenance-free buckets in wheel loaders

Bearings installed in construction machinery are exposed to high loads and difficult weather conditions. The mechanical engineering company L&K Land- und Kraftfahrzeugtechnik GmbH was therefore looking for a solution that was as robust as it was weather-resistant to realise the bearing in the bucket of a wheel loader. In the grapple bucket, the bearings for opening the bucket are subject to particularly high loads. The bearings previously used were susceptible to maintenance and therefore very costly and time-consuming in the long term. A lubrication-free solution with low friction and high mechanical load-bearing capacity was to be found in order to increase the maintenance intervals.

For the opening of the front part of the bucket of the wheel loader, the machine manufacturer uses high-performance plain bearings made of the material iglidur®. With the same dimensions as the previously used bushings, the iglidur® bearings are wear-resistant, friction-optimised and highly resilient. They are resistant to loads of up to 120 MPa (N/mm²). Another important feature of the polymer-bearing is its self-lubricating effect. The user does not have to re-grease the bearing points and saves time and money in the long term. Materials such as igutex® TX2 have been specially developed for heavy-duty applications such as in construction machinery. Thanks to extensive laboratory tests, the service life can be calculated in advance using empirical data.