Long-lasting gears for more sustainability in production

Nabtesco Corporation is highly rated worldwide for its ESG initiatives. The international conglomerate, with about 60 enterprises and a total of around 8,000 employees, makes every effort to reduce environmental impact in all phases of production. Nabtesco Precision Europe is equally committed to sustainable and responsible actions.

Sustainability has many facets. An essential aspect is product life, since a long service life means fewer new acquisitions, reduced maintenance, and the use of less material, energy and resources throughout the overall life cycle of a machine, emphasises Daniel Obladen, head of sales for general industries at Nabtesco Precision Europe. High-quality and long-lasting products such as our cycloidal gears save resources, which makes them an important step toward more sustainability.

A good indicator for the life of gears is their overload capacity. For cycloidal gears, this capacity is two to three times higher than that of planetary gears. The decisive factor here is the transmission of power by cams and rollers. This design ensures virtually full contact and even distribution of forces within the cycloidal gear unit, producing high rigidity. In addition, highly integrated angular ball bearings, which optimally absorb both axial and radial loads, ensure a high load-bearing capacity.

Nabtesco gears not only feature extremely high shock resistance up to 500% of the rated torque, but are also resistant to cracking and breakage, insensitive to vibrations, and have a low-wear design that is virtually maintenance-free. This guarantees an above-average service life and reliable operation and therefore maximum process reliability.

Sustainable maintenance concepts

Condition monitoring concepts for maintenance and repairs additionally reduce resource consumption. The digital gear twin from Nabtesco enables an individual snapshot of the robot capacity utilisation and therefore an analysis of the remaining life of the single gears. This means that a gear can remain in use until it actually shows signs of wear and tear. Precautionary replacement of all gears or even the entire robot after a defined period of use is no longer necessary. The result: reduced maintenance expenses, a longer life, higher robot availability, and lower costs.

Nabtesco is working to optimise its energy and resource efficiency at the companys Dsseldorf location as well. The provision of charging points for electric cars, and the use of environmentally friendly packaging materials for the dispatch of gears are just two examples. We are aware of our responsibility for the environment and society, which is why we continually seek possibilities for incorporating additional sustainability aspects in our processes, says Daniel Obladen.