IBETTER · improvement in Bearing Technology Through European Research Collaboration

improvement in Bearing Technology Through European Research Collaboration

iBETTER (Improvement in Bearing Technology Through European Research Collaboration) is a research programme under the FP7 Industry – Academia Partnerships and Pathways programme. The main research objective of the research programme is to link the fundamental understanding of tribological contact to selected condition monitoring signals in order to provide improved predictions of remaining useful life of a rolling bearing operating in a machine. In addition, the strategic objective is to strengthen the collaboration and create new partnerships between the industrial and academic participants involved. The project provided significant advancement in our understanding of tribology of rolling bearings, and tribological contacts in general, the sensor technology needed to monitor performance of such contacts and finally, the integration of these two factors for improved predictions of bearing life. Some of these advancements are already in use by respective partners and further avenues for exploitation have been identified. In addition, the project served to deepen the links between the research partner institutions, which has already served to initiate new collaborative proposals, and to provide substantial training to participating fellows. The success of the latter is evident in the fact that two of the four fellows recruited as part of this project have now secured permanent employment in R&D within technical fields directly related to the content of the iBETTER project. The programme included 5 work packages: WP1: Physical modelling of tribological contacts from first principles WP2: On-line health condition signal acquisition and processing WP3: Laboratory performance testing of tribological contacts WP4: Development of integrated diagnostic and prognostic models WP5: Industrial pilot projects and evaluation of new technologies And 4 programme partners: • SKF Engineering & Research Centre (SKF ERC) in Utrecht, The Netherlands. • SKF CMC in Livingston, Scotland, UK • Imperial College London (IC), UK. • Luleå University oh Technology (LTU), in Luleå, Sweden. Within the programme physical aspects (modeling and experiments) of different failure modes in rolling bearings were studied, such as wear, fatigue, spall propagation, tribolayer formation, lubrication, contamination, etc. At the same time, techniques on data analysis and data mining were used to try to predict damage development. In the final aim of developing a hybrid model of bearing life prognosis combining physical aspects and data analysis substantial progress was made. Although it is noticed that for a full development of this approach much more work is needed. It was still possible to show the potential of both techniques data-based and physics-based (Gouda et al.). Besides the programme has resulted in several achievements ((i)scientific: publications, patents and (ii)social: people exchanged, recruited and trained plus many dissemination activities). The main achievements of the programme can be summarised as: Total number of research fellows involved >25 Research fellows permanently hired after programme by partners (and other institutions) 2 (2) Number of researcher secondment months among partners (and total no of recruitments months) 75 (74) Potential number of people covered with dissemination activities >37000 Formal minimum soft skills training hours per research fellow 17 Formal minimum technical skills training hours per research fellow 19 Number of patent applications 8 Number of peer-reviewed published papers (and planned) 18(5)

Data: CORDIS, © European Union