Cost-Cutting
Powdered Lubricant
Industrial
Productivity/Manufacturing Technology
Originating
Technology/ NASA Contribution
Scientists at NASA’s Glenn Research Center developed
a high-temperature, solid lubricant coating material
that is saving the manufacturing industry millions
of dollars. The material came out of 3 decades of tribological
research, work studying high-temperature friction,
lubrication, and the wearing of interacting surfaces
that are in relative motion. It was developed as a
shaft coating deposited by thermal spraying to protect
foil air bearings used in oil-free turbomachinery,
like gas turbines, and is meant to be part of a larger
project: an oil-free aircraft engine capable of operating
at high temperatures with increased reliability, lowered
weight, reduced maintenance requirements, and increased
power.
This advanced coating, PS300, is a self-lubricating
bearing material containing chromium oxide, with additions
of a low-temperature start up lubricant (silver) and
a high-temperature lubricant, making it remarkably
stable at high temperatures, and better suited than
previously available materials for high-stress conditions.
It improves efficiency, lowers friction, reduces emissions,
and has been used by NASA in advanced aeropropulsion
engines, refrigeration compressors, turbochargers,
and hybrid electrical turbogenerators.
PS300 is ideal in any application where lowered
weight and reduced maintenance are desired, and high-temperature
uses and heavy operating speeds are expected. It has
notable uses for the Space Agency, but it has even
further-reaching potential for the industrial realm.
Partnership
The Great Lakes Industrial Technology Center (GLITeC),
a NASA technology incubator that helps small business
take advantage of available NASA technologies, assisted
ADMA Products,
Inc., in obtaining a license
for PS300.
ADMA, based in Hudson, Ohio, specializes in powder
metallurgy products from titanium, zirconium, niobium,
and other advanced materials and alloys. It had been
using PS200 for 8 years already when NASA developed
the more advanced PS300. Vladimir Moxson, ADMA president,
jumped at this new opportunity. GLITeC worked with
company management to design a commercialization plan,
and ADMA now holds the license
for PS300.
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Oil-free bushings coated in PS300 save companies
thousands of dollars in repair costs. PS300 is
a composite high-temperature, lubricating, chrome-oxide-based
material that is embedded with compound particles
that function as solid lubricants. |
Through GLITeC, NASA continued to support ADMA with
the development and commercial application of PS300.
Researchers worked closely to optimize the manufacturing
process and maximize yield. The result was that, after
the collaboration, ADMA was able to increase yields
of the key starting material from 5 percent to 45 percent.
This improvement reduced the price of the PS300 composite,
cut delivery times of the product, and increased ADMA’s
profits.
ADMA is now supplying the advanced PS300 at a reduced
cost to thankful customers, who, in turn, are saving
hundreds of thousands of dollars from the use of this
space-age product.
Product Outcome
PS300 starts as a powder, which ADMA can either manufacture
into a customized solution for a customer’s specific
needs or apply directly as a coating, via thermal spraying
techniques or standard powder metal application methods,
such as the press and sinter methods. In short, ADMA
can work this material to fit any needs.
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This red-hot
machine (pictured here with the door open)
tests the PS300 bearing materials under very
high temperatures. |
One of ADMA’s customers, Elliott Turbomachinery Company,
of Jeannette, Pennsylvania, has had resounding success
with PS304, a derivative of PS300 which is used for
coating by plasma spraying. Elliott is a designer and
manufacturer of air and gas compressors, steam turbines,
power recovery turbines, and power-generating equipment.
The company has heavy, moving machinery, called lift
rods, that withstand an amazing amount of wear and
operate in temperatures up to 1,005 °F.
ADMA provided, through Hohman Plating and Manufacturing
Corporation, of Dayton, Ohio, PS300 powdered lubricant-coated
valve lift rods for Elliot’s steam turbine compressors,
with noteworthy economic benefits. Elliott had previously
replaced the rods every 2 years,
but projects that these new rods will last 8 years.
It estimates that this will save at least $3 million
in repair costs, not including the additional advantage
of not having to leave the equipment idle for days
upon days during the actual repairs.
ADMA has provided another company with this dry lubricant
and had similarly remarkable cost-saving effects. The
Lincoln Electric Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, designs,
develops, and manufactures arc welding products, robotic
welding systems, and plasma- and oxygen-cutting equipment.
Lincoln had the need to replace a set of bronze bushings
that were an integral part of a dryer oven used in
a manufacturing line. The current bushings were causing
system failures, which led to downtime and frequent,
costly repairs. ADMA produced a set of PS300 bearings
to address
the problem.
Lincoln found that these bearings showed such high
reliability that the company decided to retrofit all
of its sintering furnaces with them. This expenditure,
the company estimates, will save an average of $200,000
per furnace per year, over an estimated lifespan of
10 to 20 years. Like Elliot, Lincoln is finding additional
economic return, since the furnaces do not have to
be shut down as often for maintenance and repairs.
It refurbished a number of its furnaces and even its
subsidiaries abroad are working to replace their bronze
bushings with the space-age material.
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