Bearings Plus Inc

About Bearings Plus

Bearings Plus® (BPI®) is an industry-leading provider of repairs and custom technology upgrades for critical turbomachinery components. BPI designs and manufactures an integrated solution that meets the specific requirements of each end user and operating environment, applying the latest fluid film bearing and high-performing seal technology to legacy equipment to optimize performance. The experts at Bearings Plus understand how bearings and seals impact the reliability and performance of rotating machinery and take into consideration their full influence on system rotordynamics and efficiency when optimizing a solution for you. BPI provides expert rotordynamic analysis and responsive, localized support to a broad range of customers, including independent overhaul shops, OEMs and end users across the globe. BPI is a Waukesha Bearings® business. Waukesha Bearings is an operating company of Dover.

Products and Services

Leading technologies offered by Bearings Plus include Flexure Pivot® tilt pad bearings, integral squeeze film damper technology and replaceable brush seals.

Flexure Pivot tilt pad bearings eliminate the pivot wear and brinelling associated with conventional tilt pad bearings, preventing degradation in performance over time. In journal bearings, the Flexure Pivot design maintains the desired bearing preload and provides a narrower spread in the stiffness and damping coefficients. Flexure Pivot thrust bearings are engineered to provide the optimum wedge ratio at the design load conditions, resulting in greater load capacity and a significant reduction in power loss. In addition, the integral pad-pivot-retainer design of the Flexure Pivot tilt pad minimizes manufacturing tolerance stack-up. In journal bearings, this has a direct impact on the rotor’s stability, critical speed, and synchronous response characteristics. In thrust bearings, it increases misalignment capability. Flexure Pivot tilt pad bearings can be manufactured with a very low profile, allowing retrofit in small spaces where only fixed profile bearings would typically fit.

Integral squeeze film damper, or ISFD®, technology provides highly engineered stiffness and damping to improve dynamic stability and shift critical speeds. Stiffness and damping are independent of each other and can be precisely controlled. This produces higher and more accurate damping capability than a conventional squeeze film damper and makes ISFD technology a leading solution for controlling vibrations. In many applications, the minimal space requirements of the ISFD design allow bearings with ISFD technology to serve as drop-in replacements to existing bearings. The technology can be used with Flexure Pivot®, tilt pad, fixed profile or rolling element bearings.

Compliant brush sealing systems from Bearings Plus reduce the leakage gap between the sealing surface and rotor by up to 80%. The compliancy of a brush seal allows the bristles to deflect with minimal wear, thereby maintaining a small leakage gap over time and increasing operational efficiencies. The uniqueness of the Bearings Plus product rests with its flexible sizing and replaceable bristle pack. These two features provide the benefits of quick turnaround times, ease of installation, and seal repair. Coupled with the efficiency gains, these benefits provide valuable savings in solving your critical sealing needs. With a growing installation list of more than 1,600 units, Bearings Plus brush seals are used in a wide variety of applications.

Specification Sheets

ISFD® Technology: Integral Squeeze Film Damper Solution to Control Vibrations

Flexure Pivot® Tilt Pad Bearing Technology

Brush Seals: A Proven Enhancer to Labyrinth Seal Performance

Rotordynamic Analysis

White Paper: Reduce Leakage with Expertly Engineered, Precision Crafted Brush Seals

Case Study: ISFD® Technology Eliminates Subsynchronous Vibrations on Steam Turbine to Achieve Full Power Output

Areas of Expertise