In collaboration with a large pump maker, NKE has developed a new modular system for the bearing arrangements to rationalise a whole pump generation. The bearing solution simplifies mounting and handling, therefore reduces costs.

The performance density of industrial gearboxes has been increasing with more compact designs and higher requirements. NKE AUSTRIA offers a wide range of bearing solutions for the increasingly demanding applications. In addition to cylindrical roller bearings, the typical gearbox bearings include spherical roller and tapered roller bearings as well as angular contact and deep groove ball bearings. Special bearings manufactured according to customer specifications can also be supplied. NKE’s gearbox bearings are used, for example, in general mechanical engineering, in mining and conveying systems, in heavy machinery, in the iron and steel industry and in wind turbines.

Bearing manufacturer NKE Austria offers electrically insulated rolling bearings. The special bearings SQ77 feature a built-in electrical insulation, which provides reliable protection against current discharge and the resulting electrical corrosion. Typical applications of electrically insulated rolling bearings are electric motors, generators and other electrical machines.

NKE AUSTRIA has supplied a special cylindrical roller bearing with an outer diameter of 3.3 m for the application in a three-roller planetary rolling mill.

SeaGen, the world’s first commercial tidal current turbine in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough, runs with bearings from NKE AUSTRIA.

Most wind turbines use gearboxes to transform the relatively low rotational speed of the main shaft into higher speeds required for power generation. Wind turbine designers have to face 2 main challenges when defining these gearboxes. First, the forces a wind turbine gearbox has to transmit are forever increasing while the gearbox itself has to remain compact. Second, these gearboxes are difficult and costly to design, to manufacture and to maintain.

NKE AUSTRIA introduces its new series of single row cylindrical roller bearings. The salient feature of this series is the wide range of variants it comprises: more than 3,000 types are made to order in NKE’s new assembly plant in the Austrian town of Steyr. In addition to being exceptionally flexible, the modular production facility enables very short lead times o­n all products. The applications of the new single row cylindrical roller bearings are as numerous as its variants: they are used in pumps and compressors, mechanical presses, electric motors, gearboxes, traction motors and axle bearings for railway vehicles, in steelworks and many other industrial applications.

NKE AUSTRIA has developed a modular bearing system for planetary gears in wind turbine gearboxes. The new bearing assemblies offer the advantages of a standardisation of the bearings used in this application, a reduced diversity of parts and simplified logistics. The system is already in use in the 1.5 MW, 2 MW and 2.5 MW wind turbine gearboxes of a well-known German gearbox manufacturer.

Locating bearings with maximum load carrying capacity, also under extreme operating conditions

Steyr, July 2009. The bearing manufacturer NKE AUSTRIA GmbH opens its first sales office in China. The objective of the representative office in Shanghai is to improve the service to OEM customers in important segments as well as to establish a nationwide distribution network. The office will be headed by Hansen Mao, who has many years of experience in the bearing industry.