An intelligent bearing that warns of specific wear level, enabling machine and equipment operators to plan maintenance, repairs or part replacement in advance, has been developed by igus. The smart iglidur plain Source: igusbearing was developed for difficult-to-access bearing points and for applications where no regular maintenance intervals have been planned.

Defects are detected before they occur, downtimes are avoided, repair times are shortened due to early intervention, and machine availability is increased. Scheduled maintenance inspections, therefore, become unnecessary.

The body of the new smart iglidur plain bearing consists of two components: the internal, lubrication-free iglidur material and an outer support polymer shell for protection. To measure the amount of wear, an intelligent sensor is mounted between the two components.

The measured data from the sensor can be used to inform the operator about the plain bearing’s wear with a warning light. For high-end applications, the data can be sent directly to a control system, which, after analysis, passes the data on to a customized web interface via the icom communication module for the purposes of maintenance and repair.