Plastigauge

Last updated

Plastigauge is a measuring tool used for measuring plain bearing clearances, such as in engines. Other uses include marine drive shaft bearings, turbine housing bearings, pump and pressure system bearings, shaft end-float, flatness and clearance in pipe-flanges and cylinder heads. Wherever it is required to determine the separation between hidden surfaces. Plastigauge is a registered trademark of Plastigauge Ltd., West Sussex, United Kingdom. Plastigauge was introduced to US retail sales in 1948. [1]

Plastigauge consists of a strip of soft material with precise known dimensions and deformation characteristics. This is sandwiched between a clean bearing surface on a shaft and the bearing shell itself. The plastigauge flattens after the bearing cap is tightened. The dimensional clearance is then determined by comparing the amount that the gauge material has flattened using a template. Letter designation describes the range of measurement use for each gauge.

Table of Plastigauge types [2]
TypeRange (metric)Range (imperial)
PL-A0.025mm - 0.175mm0.001" - 0.007"
PL-B0.100mm - 0.250mm0.004" - 0.010"
PL-C0.175mm - 0.500mm0.007" - 0.020"
PL-D0.500mm - 1.000mm0.020" - 0.040"
PL-E0.750mm - 1.750mm0.030" - 0.070"
PL-X0.018mm - 0.045mm-

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ball bearing</span> Type of rolling-element bearing

A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races.

Fluid bearings are bearings in which the load is supported by a thin layer of rapidly moving pressurized liquid or gas between the bearing surfaces. Since there is no contact between the moving parts, there is no sliding friction, allowing fluid bearings to have lower friction, wear and vibration than many other types of bearings. Thus, it is possible for some fluid bearings to have near-zero wear if operated correctly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bearing (mechanical)</span> Mechanism to constrain relative movement to the desired motion and reduce friction

A bearing is a machine element that constrains relative motion to only the desired motion and reduces friction between moving parts. The design of the bearing may, for example, provide for free linear movement of the moving part or for free rotation around a fixed axis; or, it may prevent a motion by controlling the vectors of normal forces that bear on the moving parts. Most bearings facilitate the desired motion by minimizing friction. Bearings are classified broadly according to the type of operation, the motions allowed, or the directions of the loads (forces) applied to the parts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnetic bearing</span> Bearing which supports loads using magnetic levitation

A magnetic bearing is a type of bearing that supports a load using magnetic levitation. Magnetic bearings support moving parts without physical contact. For instance, they are able to levitate a rotating shaft and permit relative motion with very low friction and no mechanical wear. Magnetic bearings support the highest speeds of any kind of bearing and have no maximum relative speed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plain bearing</span> Simplest type of bearing, comprising just a bearing surface and no rolling elements

A plain bearing, or more commonly sliding contact bearing and slide bearing, is the simplest type of bearing, comprising just a bearing surface and no rolling elements. Therefore, the journal slides over the bearing surface. The simplest example of a plain bearing is a shaft rotating in a hole. A simple linear bearing can be a pair of flat surfaces designed to allow motion; e.g., a drawer and the slides it rests on or the ways on the bed of a lathe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flexure bearing</span> Type of mechanical bearing

A flexure bearing is a category of flexure which is engineered to be compliant in one or more angular degrees of freedom. Flexure bearings are often part of compliant mechanisms. Flexure bearings serve much of the same function as conventional bearings or hinges in applications which require angular compliance. However, flexures require no lubrication and exhibit very low or no friction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewel bearing</span> Jewel-lined bearing used in precision instruments, particularly mechanical watches

A jewel bearing is a plain bearing in which a metal spindle turns in a jewel-lined pivot hole. The hole is typically shaped like a torus and is slightly larger than the shaft diameter. The jewels are typically made from the mineral corundum, usually either synthetic sapphire or synthetic ruby. Jewel bearings are used in precision instruments where low friction, long life, and dimensional accuracy are important. Their main use is in mechanical watches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rolling-element bearing</span> Bearing which carries a load with rolling elements placed between two grooved rings

In mechanical engineering, a rolling-element bearing, also known as a rolling bearing, is a bearing which carries a load by placing rolling elements between two concentric, grooved rings called races. The relative motion of the races causes the rolling elements to roll with very little rolling resistance and with little sliding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Babbitt (alloy)</span> Metallic alloys

Babbitt metal or bearing metal is any of several alloys used for the bearing surface in a plain bearing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tapered roller bearing</span> Type of roller bearing which can support axial loads

Tapered roller bearings are rolling element bearings that can support axial forces as well as radial forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Needle roller bearing</span> Type of roller bearing which uses long, thin cylinders as rollers

A needle roller bearing is a special type of roller bearing which uses long, thin cylindrical rollers resembling needles. Ordinary roller bearings' rollers are only slightly longer than their diameter, but needle bearings typically have rollers that are at least four times longer than their diameter. Like all bearings, they are used to reduce the friction of a rotating surface.

Roundness is the measure of how closely the shape of an object approaches that of a mathematically perfect circle. Roundness applies in two dimensions, such as the cross sectional circles along a cylindrical object such as a shaft or a cylindrical roller for a bearing. In geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, control of a cylinder can also include its fidelity to the longitudinal axis, yielding cylindricity. The analogue of roundness in three dimensions is sphericity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oil pump (internal combustion engine)</span> Internal combustion engine part that circulates engine oil under pressure

The oil pump is an internal combustion engine part that circulates engine oil under pressure to the rotating bearings, the sliding pistons and the camshaft of the engine. This lubricates the bearings, allows the use of higher-capacity fluid bearings and also assists in cooling the engine.

Brinelling is the permanent indentation of a hard surface. It is named after the Brinell scale of hardness, in which a small ball is pushed against a hard surface at a preset level of force, and the depth and diameter of the mark indicates the Brinell hardness of the surface. Brinelling is permanent plastic deformation of a surface, and usually occurs while two surfaces in contact are stationary and the material yield strength has been exceeded.

A thrust block, also known as a thrust box, is a specialised form of thrust bearing used in ships, to resist the thrust of the propeller shaft and transmit it to the hull.

A stave bearing is a simple journal bearing where a shaft rotates in a bearing housing. Rather than the usual arrangement where the fixed part of the bearing surrounds most of the circumference of the shaft in one or two pieces, a stave bearing uses a large number of axial staves to support the shaft. A large housing is made with grooves running along the shaft, these grooves being filled with strips of suitable material, originally wood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ball (bearing)</span> Machine component most commonly used as the rolling element in ball bearings

Bearing balls are special highly spherical and smooth balls, most commonly used in ball bearings, but also used as components in things like freewheel mechanisms. The balls come in many different grades. These grades are defined by bodies such as the American Bearing Manufacturers Association (ABMA), a body which sets standards for the precision of bearing balls. They are manufactured in machines designed specially for the job.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaw bearing</span>

The yaw bearing is the most crucial and cost intensive component of a yaw system found on modern horizontal axis wind turbines. The yaw bearing must cope with enormous static and dynamic loads and moments during the wind turbine operation, and provide smooth rotation characteristics for the orientation of the nacelle under all weather conditions. It has also to be corrosion and wear resistant and extremely long lasting. It should last for the service life of the wind turbine) while being cost effective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Air bearing</span>

Air bearings are bearings that use a thin film of pressurized gas to provide a low friction load-bearing interface between surfaces. The two surfaces do not touch, thus avoiding the traditional bearing-related problems of friction, wear, particulates, and lubricant handling, and offer distinct advantages in precision positioning, such as lacking backlash and static friction, as well as in high-speed applications. Space craft simulators now most often use air bearings and 3-D printers are now used to make air-bearing-based attitude simulators for CubeSat satellites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gear bearing</span>

A gear bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing similar to an epicyclic gear. Gear bearings consist of a number of smaller 'satellite' gears which revolve around the center of the bearing along a track on the outsides of the internal and satellite gears, and on the inside of the external gear. Each gear is in between two concentric rings. Therefore, the widths of the satellite gears must all be the same.

References

  1. "Plastic Rod Checks Bearings". Popular Mechanics : 113. March 1948.
  2. Gardiner, Bill (September 24, 1988). "Owner believes1 '84 Horizon a lost cause after 'repair'". Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont. Retrieved 9 January 2010.