Oceania Glass™ is Australia’s Architectural Glassmaker with a proud heritage serving Australia, having sold their very first glass in 1856. Oceania Glass offers a comprehensive range of value-add glass solutions through an extensive customer supply network across Australia and New Zealand. Their glass is featured in many of Australia’s most iconic buildings, including the Australian Parliament House. 

They operate a float line in Dandenong South, Melbourne, producing around 165,000 tonnes of flat glass each year and are certified by ISO 9001 Environmental Management System and ISO 140001 Quality Management Systems.

“Oceania Glass specialises in value-add glass that improves natural light to make people’s lives better, such as energy saving Low E glass used in homes and commercial buildings to make them more comfortable,” says Parvinder Singh, Reliability Engineer for Oceania Glass. “We also present a unique offering to the local architecture and design community who share our love of glass.” 

A few doors down the street from Oceania, nestled in the same industrial pocket, is CBC Dandenong — which conveniently allows Oceania to source and procure parts for repairs and maintenance on short notice. 

On one such occasion, Parvinder was experiencing trouble with the keyways of the laminate oven rollers in the glass plant, so he decided to reach out to the CBC engineering team for a consult. 

The OEM of the laminate oven had supplied a design with a keyway in the roller journal and a floating grub screw to allow thermal expansion in the oven rollers. But according to Parvinder, the drawback of this design was that the bearing housing was too static to accommodate thermal growth on such a high-heat application. 

“Due to a very small surface of contact between the grub screw and the keyway wall the grub screw had been slowly digging a cavity in to the side wall of the keyway,” explains Parvinder. “Eventually this caused the bearing to lose its ability to float in the keyway and was breaking the grub screw. Once the grub screw breaks, the roller shaft used to spin on the inner raceway of the bearing eventually wearing down the bearing journal.” 

Technical Sales Representative Chula Jayawardene and an engineer from Timken, made a joint call to Oceania Glass to examine the problem area and assess the application requirements. 

“We determined that the bearing needed space to move around during thermal expansion without pushing against the other components of the roller oven,” explains Chula. “We recommended the Timken® SNT Split Plummer Block 507 bearing unit as it would allow the bearing to expand and free float while remaining inside its housing — eliminating the wear being caused by metal-on-metal contact.”  

Parvinder agreed to undergo a trial of the bearing solution and six Timken SNT Split Plummer Block bearing units were installed based on the suggested improvement. After careful observation, the units proved to be reliable, and the trial was deemed a success. Subsequently the modification was rolled out to all the bearings on the laminate roller oven.

The team at Oceania Glass were satisfied with the solution CBC supplied because less wear on the bearing journals would mean less overhaul cost. 

“The biggest challenge we face in the glass manufacturing industry is to minimise the unplanned downtime of the machines,” says Parvinder. “The costs associated with repairs drives us to look for innovative, cost-effective, solutions to implement a strategy that will maximise the availability of the equipment we use.” 

He concludes, “Our neighbours at CBC Dandenong can understand and appreciate these engineering challenges. We walked down the street to visit our local CBC supplier, and we walked away as happy customers.” 

Timken SNT Split Plummer Block 507 Features and Benefits

• Iron-clad protection for enhanced reliability 

• Cast-Iron Housings: Durable design protects the bearing while resisting the harshest environments 

• Works with signature Timken Spherical Roller Bearings

• Premium performance with lower operating temperatures 

• Increased load carrying capacity for prolonged bearing life

• Four types of seals are available to meet your application needs: double-lip, labyrinth, V-ring or taconite designs