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GGB presents paper on development of pintle bearings for Panama Canal

Product News Wednesday, August 31, 2011: GGB North America

Heitor Sarro, product engineer for GGB Bearing Technology Brazil, presented a technical paper on the development of environmentally friendly, maintenance-free pintle bearings for the miter gates that open and close the navigational locks of the Panama Canal.

Co-authored with GGB Brazil’s Flavio Soto, segment manager; Willian Barreto, product and applications analyst; and the Panama Canal Authority’s locks overhaul engineer, Fernando Sucre, the paper was presented at this year’s HydroVision International Show, July 19-22 in Sacramento, CA.

Titled “Development phases of a high-performance hemispherical bearing as an alternative to conventional greased bearings based on customer requirements,” the presentation discussed the process from design through production of the new bearings. Covered were the historical background of the project, procurement and tests, scale-model construction and testing, product definition, bearing design, finite element analysis of full-size bearings, finite element analysis and conclusions.

The process began with gathering, analyzing and structuring application data for House of Quality methodology to correlate customer needs (i.e. greaseless operation, 25-year service life, abrasion-resistance, underwater operation, ease of assembly and operation) into functional requirements, notably no absorption of water, low coefficient of friction and embeddability.

These requirements indicated the need for a new polymeric material and breakthrough design concept. One-quarter-scale prototype bearings, featuring polymeric lubricant plugs inserted into a one-piece, hemispherical bronze shell, successfully underwent accelerated life testing.

To assess the performance of the full-size bearings without having to build a costly prototype, GGB performed finite element analysis on a modeled bearing, confirming it could withstand the contact pressure and shear forces of actual operation with a sufficient margin of safety.

The resulting bearings, which are lubricated by a matrix of PTFE-based plugs covering 75% of the sliding surface area and protruding slightly above it, have been performing effectively since their installation in 2009.