More and more often the situation arises that for special applications the properties of steel bearings are no longer sufficient for the selected application. In this case, hybrid bearings or all-ceramic bearings can be used. While in the hybrid bearing only the rolling elements are made of a ceramic material (e.g. silicon nitride), the ceramic bearing consists of both ceramic rolling elements and ceramic bearing rings.

All-ceramic bearings offer major advantages over the other two bearing types, especially in terms of wear, corrosion and temperature resistance in demanding types of applications. This is also accompanied by low weight and the possibility of higher speeds. Typical materials for full ceramic bearings are silicon carbide, silicon nitride but also aluminum oxide. However, due to significantly higher costs compared to steel bearings, these bearings have so far only been used in applications where the advantages of ceramics justify the higher acquisition costs.

Completely new possibilities are offered by the use of metal-like ceramics as a material for the manufacture of ceramic bearing rings. Bearing rings made of the precursor ceramic MLC not only offer the classic advantages of ceramic bearing rings (weight savings, corrosion resistance, temperature resistance, etc.) but also provide a thermal expansion coefficient and Young's modulus adapted to steel. In combination with the innovative manufacturing process, these multiple advantages allow ceramic bearing rings to be offered at a lower price than classic ceramics.

The possibility of near-net-shape forming prior to the pyrolysis process creates the possibility of mechanical processing with only minimal effort. After pyrolysis, only fine machining by grinding or lapping is required.

Convince yourself of the manifold advantages of MLC and request a quotation from us.