First time - long time...

[SKFengineer]

Hello to all.

I'm a simple bearing engineer haling from the eastern hills of Pennsylania, Macungie, PA to be exact. By day I play a bearing expert supporting the compressor industry and by night... Well I could be doing anything however I do spend a fair amount of time in the garage. I have a number of cars ranging from 1987 IROC-Z, 1993 GMC pickup, 1999 Saturn SC2 and a 2001 Corvette. My wife has a 2009 CTS that I take care of and I also help my brother and father-in-law with their projects, a 1970 Big Block Chevelle and a 1964 Impala SS. My father-in-law bought the '64 brand new when he came out of the service so it's a one owner car which is neat.

I first heard of this site through internet searches and the thirdgen.org site.

The camaro and truck are the two tuning candidates but who know what the future will bring. My camaro started life as a 305 TPI car but it's now a blue prinnted and balanced 355 TPI that I built with the Lingenfelter runners and baseplate, I ported the plenum. I think the Lingenfelter parts were actually first cast by Accel but then altered and marketed by Lingenfelter. Either way it's been a great motor. 10 years ago when I did all this work I didn't know much about chips and tuning so I just called up JET and they sent me a chip "custom" for my car. Fast forward I still use my car for various cruise nights and auto-x's but now I want to install a new set of headers without the AIR system. As part of this I plan to update the tuning because I've learned on the thirdgen.org that the ECM makes an adjustment for the AIR system that I want to avoid, also I heard the JET chip probably just tuned for WOT. Second project is I want to change the motor in my truck soon since it has 200,000 miles and I have no plans to keep that stock so I'll have to figure out a tune for the TBI motor. I'm 100% new to tuning etc and first I plan to just figure out data-logging and we'll go from there.

Other interest areas are everything outdoors, my wife (Jenn) and I like to go hiking out west, whitewater canoeing, swimming, skiing, biking and camping. Hanging out with friends and the other usual stuff. I love working with my hands around house and in the yard too. We don't have kids but we have a crazy goldendoodle named Tessa.

Anything else you want to know just let me know.

-George

[joegreen]

Your job sounds pretty cool. I am studying to be a mechanical engineer so i can one day work in the automotive field. Welcome to the site. You will find lots of great information here. For data logging i built my own cable. It was easy but it does not look pretty. You can buy premade cables ect. Some others will chime in because i dont know much but depending how involved you want to get i think you can buy some emulator thing where you can read data and make changes while driving the vehicle. You can check out https://www.moates.net/. So do you design bearings for use in air compressors?

[SKFengineer]

JoeGreeen - I've been working in the bearing field for 15 years and during my time here I've supported Heavy Movable structures (lift bridges, stadium roofs etc.), CAT off highway equipment, mining pumps and now compressors. I work with the respective companies to support their design of new compressors. I have traditional rotary air compressors, centrifugal compressors and everything in-between. Right now two of my bigger projects involve magnetic bearings for a refrigerant compressor and ceramic bearings for an oil and gas unit. I can tell you at my company a mechanical engineer can hold just about any job.

For data logging and my car I've already collected a moates cable and aldl box. Pretty much everything they said I would need for the 1987 IROC. I also have TunerPro RT on my laptop but I haven't been able to make the two talk yet and I understand the IROC ecm is one of the most unstable.

[1project2many]

Hi, and Welcome to the forum.

I've been working in the bearing field for 15 years and during my time here I've supported Heavy Movable structures (lift bridges, stadium roofs etc.), CAT off highway equipment, mining pumps and now compressors.

Sounds like some neat stuff to be involved with. I was reading about base isolated construction in Japan. Pretty cool to see some of the designs used to support these tall buildings. Some of them are essentially just plates on bearings.

[Fast355]

Hi, and Welcome to the forum.


Sounds like some neat stuff to be involved with. I was reading about base isolated construction in Japan. Pretty cool to see some of the designs used to support these tall buildings. Some of them are essentially just plates on bearings.

Really cool! After 10 years of being at an automotive dealership in parts/service departments I am going back to school myself. Not sure if I am going mechanical or electrical engineering just yet.

[joegreen]

Really cool! After 10 years of being at an automotive dealership in parts/service departments I am going back to school myself. Not sure if I am going mechanical or electrical engineering just yet.

very cool, good for you

[SKFengineer]

Fast and Joe... My engineering experience is from the point of view of one person, me, but if you ever have questions let me know. My job has allowed me travel all over the world and work with many different engineers. I'll be happy to discuss any ideas or questions you have. Below is a picture of the main support bearing for the Willis Ave swing bridge in NYC. This bearing supports the weight of the whole 1.3 million pound bridge span and allows it to pivot 90 degrees. You can search online for the Willis Ave. Bridge. The bridge and bearing where installed and built in St. Louis and then moved down the Mississippi around the gulf up the coast and finally up the Harlem river to get where it is today. Some of the pics you'll see online are of the bridge span on a barge passing under other NYC bridges.

Attachment 8677

[joegreen]

Fast and Joe... My engineering experience is from the point of view of one person, me, but if you ever have questions let me know. My job has allowed me travel all over the world and work with many different engineers. I'll be happy to discuss any ideas or questions you have. Below is a picture of the main support bearing for the Willis Ave swing bridge in NYC. This bearing supports the weight of the whole 1.3 million pound bridge span and allows it to pivot 90 degrees. You can search online for the Willis Ave. Bridge. The bridge and bearing where installed and built in St. Louis and then moved down the Mississippi around the gulf up the coast and finally up the Harlem river to get where it is today. Some of the pics you'll see online are of the bridge span on a barge passing under other NYC bridges.

Attachment 8677

That thing is impressive.

[1project2many]

Really cool! After 10 years of being at an automotive dealership in parts/service departments I am going back to school myself. Not sure if I am going mechanical or electrical engineering just yet.

That's awesome! I loved my time in EE / CS. Life sent me in a different direction before I could graduate but I'd love to finish it someday. I will say the math is extremely intensive. I believe it's tougher on the EE than on the ME side, but if you are able to apply it properly you'll do ok.

SKFengineer, I just told one of my mechanics his first job today was to repack that bearing. He was so impressed he didn't even think to ask for the pre-load torque!

[SKFengineer]

1project... I think your right, EE math does seem to be more aggressive, or maybe my mechanical mind can vision the ME math better. I'll tell you the team for the magnetic bearing project I'm on is half ME's and half EE's. All kinds of things I never considered with the EE's. I also see you are in the "Lake Region of NH". I have family just outside of Meredith, NH and I have talked to those guys at CFM-tech a few times. I think they are along Lake Winnipesauke somewhere. It seems their site is partly down but hopefully everything is fine up there. BTW, we are sending you more snow, it started around 6:00 AM here in Macungie, PA.

[Fast355]

That's awesome! I loved my time in EE / CS. Life sent me in a different direction before I could graduate but I'd love to finish it someday. I will say the math is extremely intensive. I believe it's tougher on the EE than on the ME side, but if you are able to apply it properly you'll do ok.

SKFengineer, I just told one of my mechanics his first job today was to repack that bearing. He was so impressed he didn't even think to ask for the pre-load torque!

My uncle is a ME and now a project foreman for Beck and was in school to be a ME back when I was in grade school. He finished all his college classes and his ME testing/licensing stuff about the time I was graduating high school. He always bugged me as a kid to go to school and still harps on me on occasion because he realized more than I did that I should be doing something more. Parts/Service end of a dealership is too dull and boring for my mind. It has taken me a few years to make the decision that I wanted to go back to school.

Bearing is definately impressive. What is the preload torque?

[SKFengineer]

Preload torque? Of the bearing in the picture? The whole bridge...

Bearings can be preloaded for a number of reasons but in the case of automotive wheel bearings or other industrial paired bearings that can handle both radial and axial loads we provide an axial preload to ensure full contact of all the rollers so that skidding doesn't occur between the rollers and the rings. For wheel corner applications you have the weight the the car providing the radial load but you need a bearing solution that can also handle axial load from the car's cornering etc. For this application a pair of bearings that is designed to handle both types of loads is selected. When a bearing that can handle loads in both axis's is subjected to just radial load a reaction force in the axial direction occurs inside of the bearing. This axial force will try to push the inner rings and rollers out of the outer rings and un-seat the roller and ring contacts. It is for this reason that we select a pair of bearings and apply a preload to the bearing set.

This brings us back to the bridge bearing. In this case there is only one bearing and 99.99% of the load on this one bearing (the bridge weight) is in the axial direction with no real radial load to speak of so we don't need to preload this bearing.

I've just given a one paragraph explanation for something that many study for month before they completely understand, I've been very general and brief so if there are other questions please let me know.

[SKFengineer]

This may help, here are two more pictures. So the picture I posted above is just the inner ring of the bearing and it's mounted onto the plate that will be attached to the upper section of the bridge that swings for boat traffic. Also that first picture shows the bearing up-side down compared to how it sits today supporting the Willis Ave bridge. We had to flip that bearing and plate over so it could be dropped into the outer ring which is in round housing that bolted to the foundation of the pier that holds the bridge today. The last picture shows the orientation of how the two piece sit today under the bridge span.

Attachment 8680Attachment 8679

[Fast355]

Preload torque? Of the bearing in the picture? The whole bridge...

Bearings can be preloaded for a number of reasons but in the case of automotive wheel bearings or other industrial paired bearings that can handle both radial and axial loads we provide an axial preload to ensure full contact of all the rollers so that skidding doesn't occur between the rollers and the rings. For wheel corner applications you have the weight the the car providing the radial load but you need a bearing solution that can also handle axial load from the car's cornering etc. For this application a pair of bearings that is designed to handle both types of loads is selected. When a bearing that can handle loads in both axis's is subjected to just radial load a reaction force in the axial direction occurs inside of the bearing. This axial force will try to push the inner rings and rollers out of the outer rings and un-seat the roller and ring contacts. It is for this reason that we select a pair of bearings and apply a preload to the bearing set.

This brings us back to the bridge bearing. In this case there is only one bearing and 99.99% of the load on this one bearing (the bridge weight) is in the axial direction with no real radial load to speak of so we don't need to preload this bearing.

I've just given a one paragraph explanation for something that many study for month before they completely understand, I've been very general and brief so if there are other questions please let me know.

It makes perfect sense, this constant force we call gravity and the mass of the bridge provides the "preload".