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Wheels:
Replacement plastic bearings show their mettle on worldwide car tour

Editor's note: Visiting the igus iglide World Tour blog is a must to really understand the scope of this promotional (and celebrational) endeavor. Use this link and count down the pages from the start (currently page 20). Make sure you click "more" on the blog entries to see the detailed engineering touch points of specific tour stops.

Here's a great promotional idea. To celebrate 30 years of their line of self-lubricating plastic bearings called "iglide" (and tied into the company's 50th anniversary), igus has been traveling around the world with its orange iglide Smart car, retrofit with 56 of igus' plastic bearings in applications including the throttle valve, windshield wipers, alternator, and more. After a half-year of traveling through Asia and South America, and 17,500 miles of driving through deserts, rainforests, and some of the world's busiest cities, the tour car, driven by igus World Tour driver Sascha Laufenberg, has made it to the United States. The igus team will be visiting customers across a massive range of industries, from automotive and motorcycle manufacturers, to aerospace, manufacturing equipment, and more.

(If you notice that one side of the car says "iglidur," that's because that is the name used for iglide products in Europe, Asia, and the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere.)

The retrofits: The igus car spent 4 weeks at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences being retrofit with iglide bearings. After a trip around the world and thousands of miles, the car will be stripped down again at the Hannover Fair in 2015 to demonstrate how the bearings endured the journey.

iglide throughout the car: 56 iglide plastic bearings were retrofit into 56 different applications throughout the car. Here are just a few of the many places they are used. Other places in the car where iglide bearings were used include the hinge systems, steering systems, gears, water pump, and brake calipers.

This final leg had driver Laufenberg starting in Alaska and traveling through the Yukon Territory of Canada, down through Vancouver, British Columbia, then across the border to the United States into Washington State. From there, the car has taken on a new driver and made its way to San Francisco and Los Angeles and is now heading east. In October, the car will be flown across the Atlantic Ocean to carry on the tour in Europe, before returning home to Germany in 2015, where the iglide bearings will be removed and observed, truly testing their wear resistance through the nine-month odyssey.

Highlights from the igus World Tour trip blog include:

The journey begins ... leaving home (Germany)

India
Visiting the New Delhi Auto Expo, the biggest auto show in India; JCB (Faridabad, India), a leading manufacturer of construction equipment in the country that uses iglide bearings in the steering mechanisms and loaders of their vehicles; Lumax (New Dehli), who uses plain iglide bearings in their gear shift levers; and Mercedes Benz Research and Development headquarters (Bangalore).

China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan
Visiting igus China and Johnson Controls (Shanghai); a labeling machines manufacturer in Tai'an (east coast of China near Jinan); Leepack (Asan, South Korea),a leading manufacturer for intermittent rotary packaging systems; UNICK, an automotive parts specialist in Busan, South Korea; Hanmac Electronics (southern South Korea) a molder of plastic parts for appliances like refrigerators and washing machines; AEON, a well-known scooter manufacturer in Taiwan; and igus Japan.

Brazil
Visitng EATON (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and MarcoPolo (Port Alegre, Brazil) a bus-body manufacturer.

The United States and Canada
Visitng a gelato maker and a bicycle manufacturer in Vancouver; a fitness machinery design company in Seattle; and making the way from San Francisco to the East Coast.

High-performance polymers for automotive applications
The round-the-world journey is a test of the iglide plastic bearings installed within the car. iglide bearings are wear resistant due to their tribologically optimized plastic compound, designed to withstand high stresses. Such features support long service life of the vehicle components. iglide bearings are already used in millions of cars produced annually, in surprising applications like moving the seats or in the throttle valves.

Specific features of iglide bearings, including resistance to dirt, oil, and chemicals, pressure resistance, and shock absorption, make them excellent for use in the chassis, engine compartment, and gearbox. For door hinges and other moving parts, iglide is also a great fit, as they are corrosion-free, self-lubricating, and silent.

Low-weight plastic bearings also contribute to lightweight automobile construction. This reduces fuel consumption, lessening impact on the environment. iglide bearings are also cost effective and offer economic solutions for mass production.

iglide bearings are also a solution for countless other industries, including in the medical and food-packaging industries, in agricultural machinery, machine tools, and a wide variety of others. For more information about iglide or the car's World Tour or the benefits of iglide plastic bearings, visit www.iglide.com/30, or visit the World Tour blog, with photos from the worldwide adventure and the retrofit process at http://blog.igus.com/Blogengine/US. Remember to click on "more" when the entries provide that option.

Source: igus

Published August 2014

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Replacement plastic bearings show their mettle on worldwide car tour]

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