Manufactured Products by TRI Transmission and Bearing Corp.
Industrial Brakes
TRI manufactures heavy-duty brakes for fluid drives and other industrial equipment. TRI brakes are designed for easy maintenance and a reliable hydraulic system. The feature that sets the TRI brakes apart from our competitors is the hydraulic pump which retains clamp pressure even if small leaks occur in the brake lines.
Our heavy duty hydraulic brakes are custom made for your equipment. Contact a TRI engineer for more information about brakes and other manufactured products.
Generator Fans
Heavy-duty Fans
TRI Manufactures heavy-duty fans for air cooled generators. Our fans are machine from a single solid steel forging. There are no welds to fail. These fans have excellent strength and vibration characteristics.
Our generator fans are custom made for your equipment. Contact a TRI engineer for more information about fans and other manufactured products.
Babbitted Seals
Fixed Babbitted Seals, Labyrinth Seals and Floating Seal Rings
TRI Manufactures Babbitted seals for rotating equipment. Our seals have steel backing and precision machine Babbitt bores. We have both standard sizes and custom designs. Our designs can come with custom labyrinth teeth configurations, anti-rotation pins and width customized to your application. Our seals are used extensively throughout many industries.
Contact a TRI engineer for more information about Babbitt Seals and other manufactured products.
Lube Oil Systems
Fluid drives and bearings require dependable oil systems. The lube oil systems are critical components that can shut down plants for weeks or even months if they fail. The cost of unscheduled maintenance outages greatly exceeds the cost of lube oil systems.
TRI has been in the business of providing equipment for bearings and fluid drives for over 40 years. We understand that what is required for reliable systems with redundant backups. Consequently, TRI has provided many customers over the years with new or improved oil systems.
Here is a list of the lube oil system that we have built in the past:
- Lift oil system for a large generator. These system provided over 3000 psi to ensure no contact between the heavy rotor and the bearing surfaces during startup and shutdown. A hydrodynamic bearing depends on the rotation of the shaft to develop an oil film. Until this film is developed, the journal can rub and wipe in the bearing bore. This often happens during start up, shut down, or on turning gear. TRI makes a high pressure lift oil system with modified bearings to reduce the wear at low speed. Lift oil system also have the added benefit of reducing the power required to turn the shaft slowly turning generator/turbine
- An emergency lube oil system for a chemical facility. This system used UPS and VFD technology so that readily available AC motors could be used during power outages.
- Fluid drive oil system that provides both lubrication to the bearings and circuit oil for the hydrokinetic coupling.
More Information
Hydrogen Seals
TRI designs, manufactures, and supplies upgraded hydrogen seal ring assemblies for GE Generators of all sizes and speeds. Major advantages are that they provide improved sealing and lower hydrogen gas usage which means that higher gas pressures can be used. This provides improved cooling of the stator and rotor, which in turn permits higher MW generation, higher MVAR operation, and higher reliability and availability.
The critical features and upgrades include:
- The upper outer housing is removable, permitting direct access to the garter spring and the hydrogen seal rings. This makes seal ring and spring installation very easy and reliable.
- TRI seal rings are made of heat treated alloy steel with Babbitt lined bore. Because the steel seal rings and the generator rotors are very similar alloy steels, the diametral clearance that is set when cold remains relatively constant for all operating temperature conditions. TRI specifies clearances that are larger than the clearances for Bronze rings because the clearances for bronze rings get measurably larger with increasing temperature and the clearances for steel rings remain relatively constant. The objective is for the steel ring clearances to match the bronze ring clearances at normal operating temperatures.
- The original GE bronze seal rings are made in quarter sections. The butt joints where the sections of the bronze rings meet do not always seal as intended and leak oil and hydrogen gas. Many of these seals are still in service and are substantial candidates for replacement.
- TRI’s steel and Babbitt seal rings are made in halves and the joints include tight dowel pins and separate screws. There is no clearance within this joint, making a very tightly sealed joint with no losses. Another consequence is that there is NO STEP at the joint, so the oil film is continuous across the joint. A consequence of a step that can easily occur in the GE steel ring design is that it can scrape the oil film off the journal which causes the seal ring to contact the journal resulting in overheated and wiped seals.
- Under high vibration conditions of the generator rotor, bronze seals sometimes separate at the joints causing severe leakage. This cannot happen with steel rings because they have screws and dowel pins to hold them together tightly at the joints.
- Each seal housing contains an insulating ring made of NEMA Grade G-10 Industrial Laminate to mate to the generator frame. The screws that retain the seal housing to the frame have a wound epoxy-fiberglass insulation that duplicates the G-10 material, along with insulating and hardened steel washers. Removable jack screws to align the seal housing to the journal are included.
- TRI can also provide inner oil deflectors that are steel backed and have numerous aluminum strips to minimize oil getting into the generator itself. These TRI Inner Oil Deflectors are insulated and have alignment screws for easy alignment to the rotor.