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Thordon Bearings has indicated a polymer propeller shaft bearing lubricated by seawater could generate significantly less underwater radiated noise (URN) than metal bearings lubricated by oil. The Canadian polymer bearings specialist says the low URN of a ship operating with seawater-lubricated propeller shaft bearings is one of the reasons why the arrangement is favoured by the naval, cruise and fisheries sectors.

Thordon Bearings is supplying its grease-free, self-lubricating ThorPlas-Blue bearing material to a novel containerized wind propulsion system designed to reduce fuel consumption and fossil fuel emissions across all commercial ship types.

Global demand for raw materials is opening the door to a new market for Thordon Bearings, with one of the world’s largest mining companies, Grupo México, using the Canadian company’s grease-free and self-lubricating bearings in a myriad of pump and machinery applications. Since 2014, when Thordon’s Mexico-based distributor TZ Industrias first supplied and retrofitted ThorPlas-Blue bearings to vertical turbine pumps operating at its copper and ore mines in Sonora and Nacozari, Grupo México has continued to specify Thordon solutions for other equipment, including heavy industrial vehicles.