There are many reasons why thousands of companies worldwide use Tufcot® materials in hundreds of applications.
The Tufcot Team use six key factors of why customers should use Tufcot® composite materials over conventional metals and other composite bearing materials, they are:
- Self-Lubricating
- No Maintenance
- High Strength to Weight Ratio
- Minimal Swell in Water
- Low Friction
- Easy Installation
What Our MD Has to Say in This Video…
There are many different benefits to Tufcots materials but in order to explain the key benefits we have simplified this down to six.
Firstly, Self-Lubrication, Tufcot® composite bearing materials are manufactured from synthetic reinforcing fibres and thermosetting resins with solid lubricant incorporated. These include Graphite, P.T.F.E or Molybdenum Disulphide, which get dispersed evenly throughout the material so that the wear of the bearing surface continually releases further lubricant. Tufcot® offers design engineers an attractive alternative to traditional materials used throughout industry for bushes, bearings, wear pads, and many more products.
Secondly, Tufcot needs no maintenance, due to it having a self-lubricating nature there is no need for maintenance on the parts once installed. Tufcot® bearings have been proven to last three times longer than phosphor bronze in the same application, saving the end user time and money on replacement parts, extending the life of the maintenance programme to allow for further use of the Tufcot parts.
Tufcot has a high strength to weight ratio. Tufcot weighs 1/6th the weight of steel and is an ideal choice where weight saving is needed. The strength to weight ratio is impressive for a composite material. Weight saving is crucial in market sectors where weight can mean higher energy costs for example the marine or rail sectors.
Tufcot has minimal swell in water, in our recently acquired Lloyds Type approval for Rudder bearings, the test figures from the report gave the Tufcot® material grade T100MP a figure of 0.02% volumetric water swell, there is also no reduction of mechanical properties when working in water. This makes Tufcot® an ideal choice for use in any marine applications. When you compare this with other composite materials, for example cotton phenolic, which can be between 2 to 5% water swell. This offers significant advantage to design engineers for subsea equipment.
Tufcot has exceptionally low friction, in recent testing our Tufcot® T100MP material recorded a figures of 0.15µ dynamic co-efficient of friction. This makes Tufcot® materials ideal for standard bearing applications where the co-efficient of friction needs to be low. Lower values can be achieved with some of our other grades, namely our XPL range which incorporates a PTFE fabric onto the wear surface of the parts.
Tufcot is easy to install as our parts are often installed by the end user, either by press fitting, freeze fitting or bonding. Our Technical Brochure gives details or our specialised Technical department can assist you.
