You may or may not know that AGMA manages the American Bearing Manufacturers Association, ABMA, similarly to AGMA. Because gears and bearings go together like “peas and carrots!” to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite movies. I thought that the GT audience would like an update on what is going on in the technical division of ABMA.

ABMA has one technical committee, the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) B3, to handle all the standards development. They maintain 27 ABMA standards, 16 adopted ISO standards, and help form the US position through ISO Technical Advisory Group (TAG) work on 84 ISO standards related to bearings under ISO Technical Committee 4.

The current projects that the committee is working on are:

• Revision project: ANSI/ABMA 4-1994, Tolerance Definitions and Gauging Practices for Ball and Roller Bearings. This is a front-to-back revision, clarifying and improving the specifications and information presented as well as updating symbols and definitions to better align with ISO standards The document had been in stabilized maintenance since 2013.
• Revision project: ANSI/ABMA 20-2011, Radial Bearings of Ball, Cylindrical Roller and Spherical Roller Types—Metric Design. This is a front-to-back revision, updating the style of the document, clarifying and expanding the included size range, and updating symbols and definitions to better align with match ISO standards. This document was last revised in 2011 and reaffirmed in 2020.
• New project: ABMA Wind Turbine Bearing Failure Atlas. This new project committee was formed to update and add to a 2006 National Renewable Energy Laboratory document regarding bearing failures, specifically focusing on bearings in the various parts of a land-based wind turbine. The committee is reviewing and updating the information, separating the failures by their location in the wind turbine, and considering adding new failure cases. Failure modes are identified, and potential causes are discussed along with possible mitigation strategies. This document is intended to be used by maintenance or service personnel, repair technicians, and wind turbine owners to help communicate with bearing manufacturers and wind turbine component manufacturers.

If you have any questions about any of these projects, please contact info@americanbearings.org to learn more. To have a balance of opinions on the committee, we are especially looking for companies that purchase bearings but do not manufacture bearings and individuals or organizations that neither purchase nor manufacture bearings but have knowledge and interest in bearings, such as consultants and academics, to join.