Rigging with Slide Mounted Air Bearings

Slide Mounted Air Bearings are used extensively in the Rigging Industry to make repetitive heavy load moving reliable and easy. Large steel pallets with Slide Mounted Air Bearings are used to move heavy loads of sheet metal blanks weighing up to 20,000 pounds from the stamping press to a nearby staging area. This eliminates any production downtime while waiting for a fork truck.

The operation includes a reinforced fabricated steel pallet with top mounted fixtures, four slide mounted 21 inch diameter Air Bearings, simple pneumatic control circuitry for on/off operation, a guide rail for straight line transfer and a newly prepared concrete floor surface. Four 21 inch Air Bearings have a total system capacity of 28,000 pounds using only 90 SCFM @ 25 pounds per square inch – gauge pressure of compressed air.

The Slide Mounted Air Bearings can be removed for inspection or replaced if necessary even with a full load of blanks, making maintenance easy and quick. This is another reason why Air Bearing platforms have a high availability within the plant production cycle. Another advantage of the Air Bearing is the fact that floating a large 20,000 load on a thin film of air requires only 60 pounds of effort to move the loaded platform.

Air Bearings are used in many applications in addition to the one stated above and consequently are manufactured in diameters ranging from 12 to 60 inches and can transport loads from 200 pounds up to thousands of tons. Once floating on a thin film of air the Air Bearings provide low frictional force making transport easy, omni or four direction motion to optimized floor space, precise positioning, and low surface floor loading.

In addition Air Bearings provide for a clean and quiet operation, gently move sensitive loads and in many cases eliminates the need for fork trucks and/or overhead cranes. Aeris Corporation manufactures standard as well as custom designed systems including individual Air Bearing load modules, planks, pallets, roll-movers, turntables, and power driven steel transporters.

About The Author:

Bob Ross is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.bearing-n-bearings.com. Keep things running smoothly with ball bearings, roller bearings, ball thrust bearings and tapered bearings.