GRAPHALLOY Bushings and Bearings

Search This Blog

Monday, March 26, 2012

GRAPHALLOY® Electrical Solutions

GRAPHALLOY® Brushes, Slip Rings and Contacts solve signal applications where low noise is a requirement. They are available in various sizes and grades including copper, bronze and silver.

Brushes
GRAPHALLOY Brushes are common in rotating equipment to conduct currents ranging from minute instrument or signal values to power ratings. Brush materials include Silver Graphalloy and Copper Graphalloy. Special high altitude grades are available as well.

These brushes can be used in:
•Microwave equipment
•Servo systems
•Synchros
•Inverters
•Thermocouple and strain gauge circuits
•Pulse systems
•Computer grounding contacts
•Torque indicators
•Medical equipment
•Packaging machinery

Contacts
GRAPHALLOY Contacts are particularly valuable for interrupting highly inductive or heavy overloaded currents in circuit breakers, controllers, contactors and relays.

Possible Applications:
•Alarms
•Circut breakers
•Furnace Controls
•Medical apparatus
•Oven controls
•Switches
•Welding Machines

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

GRAPHALLOY® Solves a Proton Beam Problem

The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) is a Department of Energy atomic particle research lab in Batavia, IL. Fermilab specializes in high energy physics research and devotes much of their efforts toward understanding the basic properties of fundamental particles including neutrinos and other subatomic particles.

Fermilab turned to GRAPHALLOY® bearings from Graphite Metallizing Corporation to solve a problem in a critical "neutrino target adjustment" mechanism when previous solutions had failed.

Fermilab's MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) is designed to observe neutrino beam composition and energy distribution as it travels underground from Fermilab in Illinois to the Soudan Iron Mine in Minnesota. Neutrinos produced by the particle accelerator at Fermilab are "beamed" 450 miles through the earth.

To produce this beam of neutrinos, a proton beam starts at the Main Injector accelerator. The protons are magnetically focused onto a target. Once the protons strike the target, secondary particles are produced, focused by a pair of magnetic focusing "horns". The particles of interest then decay into neutrinos. It is the mechanical adjustment of these focusing horns that requires GRAPHALLOY bearings.

This operation runs in a particularly hostile environment. It is radioactive and corrosive and is exposed to nitric acid and ionized air. Metallic bushings cannot be used. In addition, polymers, organics, plastics and oil cannot be used in the operation. Finally, the bearings must run dry.

The unique properties of GRAPHALLOY provided the solution to this application. GRAPHALLOY bushings were used to target and position the horns because other materials would corrode and freeze up...and continue to outlast the other materials in this target assembly.

(Image courtesy of Fermilab Visual Media Services)