The excellent performance of WSBC Bearings in heavy duty is attributed to the synergistic innovation of its processes and materials. Leveraging high carbon chromium steel GCr15SiMn as the base and vacuum degassing smelting technology, the fatigue life of the bearing is increased to 1.8 times that of the industry, the dynamic load rating is up to 680 kN, and the static load limit reaches over 1,200 kN. Significantly higher than the ISO 281:2007 standard of similar products 15%-20%. For instance, in the test of China Heavy Machinery Industry Association in 2022, WSBC cylindrical roller bearings under constant-state 48 hours and 85 tons load of bearing, the temperature rise is merely 12°C, and the friction coefficient is also uniform at 0.0011-0.0013, which is 18% higher than the energy saving efficiency of similar competitive products. The maintenance cost of equipment each year can be reduced by about 75,000 yuan.
On the structure design level, WSBC Bearing adopts four symmetrical cylindrical roller arrangement columns, a contact angle optimized to 25°±2 ‘, an increase in load distribution uniformity by 32%, and a minimum single point pressure peak of less than 1.8 GPa. This structure is superior in engineering practice of XUGong Group XGC88000 crawler crane: when hoisting 4,200 tons of modular reactor, the bearing has been in continuous working condition for 1,500 hours without abnormal wear, vibration amplitude is restricted to 3.5μm/s, and failure rate is 41% lower than that in conventional design. According to the data of the National Rail Transit Laboratory, if the high-speed gear box with WSBC bearings is run at a speed of 350 km/h, the surface hardness of the raceway is kept unchanged at 62-64 HRC and the life cycle is extended to 1.2 million kilometers, reducing the life cycle cost by approximately 23%.
In the process of manufacture, the thickness of the carburized quenching layer of WSBC Bearing is precisely controlled to 2.5-3.0mm, and the surface residual austenite is less than 8%, which ensures 95% dimensional stability in severe conditions between -40°C and 150°C. In the 2023 Three Gorges Hydropower Station capacity expansion project, WSBC thrust bearings stably supported 13,500 tons of hydraulic turbine axial load and its oil film thickness deviation as low as ± 0.8μm, the support system efficiency improved to 99.2%, and the loss of power generation was saved 120 million KWH annually. Besides that, WSBC’s intelligent preload regulation technology has the ability to dynamically control the axial clearance at 5-15μm, lowering the average annual failure downtime of wind power spindle bearings in 8 MW units to 3.2 hours and enhancing reliability by 27% compared with international first-line brands.
In cost effectiveness, WSBC Bearing’s modular design lowers installation cycles by 40% and maintenance labor costs by 35%. Taking Baosteel hot rolling production line as an example, equipped with WSBC four-row tapered roller bearings, its run time has been extended from 6 months to 18 months, the replacement frequency of spare parts has reduced by 60%, and each production line has saved 12 million yuan every year on operation and maintenance. Market data show that during 2021-2023, the market penetration rate of WSBC bearings in the global heavy industry increased from 12.4% to 19.7%, and the customer re-purchase rate was as high as 83%, which is a testament to its irreplaceability in heavy-load applications.
From the experience example, WSBC Bearing is used on Zoomlion ZCC1300 super large crawler crane has achieved the engineering innovation of lifting 1,600 tons of nuclear power dome for once, and the value of bearing instantaneous impact load tolerance has reached 2.3 times rated load, and the radial runout is always below 0.02 mm. This performance is praised by the 2023 Technical evaluation report of Construction Machinery’s magazine, who believes that it increases the maximum load carrying capacity limit of heavy-duty bearings by 31%, updating the safety redundancy norm for the industry.