BOULDEN MORE THAN DOUBLES RUNTIME OF HIGH-TEMPERATURE MIXER WITH POLYCRYSTALLINE DIAMOND (PCD) BEARING UPGRADE

Dodge-Style Bearings Unable to Endure Stress

A heavy equipment manufacturer’s high-temperature side-entry mixer was experiencing downtime every three to six months, causing production to stop for days at a time. The estimated daily financial impact was in the tens of thousands of dollars.

The problem was traced to the mixer’s Dodge-style bearings, which were unable to endure the multiple stresses from heat, torque, load, contamination, and vibration.

Boulden has extensive experience with mixers of this type and expertise in keeping critical equipment running in harsh environments. The manufacturer supported Boulden’s recommendation to replace the mixer’s Dodge-style bearings with polycrystalline diamond (PCD) bearings.

PCD bearings can tolerate high temperatures, and with extraordinarily high hardness, they offer tremendous wear resistance—unaffected by sand, grit, or other abrasives.

Based on the bearings’ performance after more than a year, the mixer manufacturer has applied PCD bearing designs into its other mixers.