Marine Sport rotating joint / bearing concept

[nxakt]

First post in this forum and appreciate any feedback.

We are working on a marine sport concept and would like some evaluation of a joint concept based on a bearing.

The system operates in fresh water and salt water. Pressurized water [ 6-8 bar ] is directed through the joint and the nozzle angle is guided by the user.

Rotation speed of the joint is slow and intermittent, with about 30 degrees of freedom of rotation.

The material of the two main bodies (gray and blue in renderings) is sandcast marine alloy aluminum, with machined and hard anodized faces.

The full complement of balls can be ideally POM, PTFE, or ceramic due to immersion in saltwater. The system can be sealed with o-rings (not shown) and stainless steel balls used with grease as a fallback solution.

Time between maintenance, 100 hours.

The ID of the system for reference is 80 mm, the diameter of the balls is 8mm.

Any suggestions, concerns, thoughts on the concept appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Tmoose]

I assume there is a ball loading port in the gray body for each row?

 

[nxakt]

Yes, two loading ports with flush shut offs.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Rotary unions are available commercially. I suggest you buy a few and reverse- engineer them to get a handle on the sort of problems you'll have to solve when you go from rendering to hardware.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA