Analysis Bearing Failure

The Journey Begins With Us

Our sole purpose is to serve our clients with the highest quality, most responsive and innovative technical services available in our industry.

Herguth Laboratories, Inc. has been providing industry with consultation including analysis of bearing failure since 1980. We are ISO 9001:2000 certified and specialize in the analysis of lubricants, fuels, greases and tribological related failures.

Tribology is defined as, “The science of the mechanisms of friction, lubrication, and wear of interacting surfaces that are in relative motion.” A great deal of tribological research is being conducted throughout the world in universities, and inprivate, government, and industrial laboratories. Virtually unheard of ten years ago, there have been thousands of Tribology papers published since 1990 and the knowledge is disseminated through many technical societies. The reliability of machines steadily improves because of this research. 

Herguth Laboratories, Inc. and our Research Associates are committed to maintaining our edge in tribology. Wear, or the undesirable removal of material due to relative motion, is a large consumer of materials, and shortens the life and reduces the reliability of machines. Friction and wear cost the economies of the world billions of dollars per year. 

Herguth Laboratories, Inc. provides Tribological services as follows:

Wear Analysis
- Determine mechanism of wear and solutions by examination of worn parts
- Analysis of Lubricants
- Wear Particle Analysis 

Performance Tests
- " Pin-on-Disk " by ASTM G-99-90
- 4-ball tests by ASTM D-1583, ASTM D-2283 and ASTM D-4172 measure friction and wear of metal/lubricant
combinations under boundary lubrication conditions
- "Pad-on-Disk"
- Friction
- Electrical contact under hydrodynamic conditions
- Ball bearing torque measurements
- Fretting Corrosion tests for metal/lubricant combinationsTo satisfy the needs of our clients we have developed Research Associate Program. This program allows experts in many different fields the opportunity to work with Herguth Laboratories, Inc. in their area of expertise as required by specific projects.

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) Image

View of the Pin from the Pin-On-Disk Tribometer
Polymer Separation as Point of Contact

The client had excessive “rubber like” deposits forming in a $600,000 gearbox. This happened shortly after changing to a different brand of lubricant. Using SEM and other analysis, Herguth Laboratories, Inc. successfully argued that the polymer was unstable and was the source of the deposit. Our client recouped ALL of their cost associated with this failure!

For more information call 1-888-HERGUTH (437-4884)