Freudenberg supplying seals to "major" tractor maker

Weinheim, Germany - Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST) has been awarded a contract to supply its latest, three-component design cassette seals to a “major” global manufacturer of agricultural, construction and forestry machinery.

The company is supplying its “most advanced” solution – Cassette-S4 – for axle sealing to prevent contamination and oil leaks, FST said in a 23 July release.

The Cassette-S4 will be installed on the rear axles of the manufacturer’s newest row crop tractor platforms, offering dirt protection and material durability, the company added.

The multi-function seal was developed following a review of the machinery maker’s tractor warranty issues and analysis of failure data.

“We realised in 2011 that even when supplying our customers with... Cassette-S3 seals, they were still seeing warranty issues,” said Giorgio Cucco, global technical director at FTS’s Luserna facility in Italy.

Freudenberg engineers discovered that the double-lip design of the Cassette-S3 seal, while providing sealing against dirt ingress in tractor wheel hubs in most applications, did not hold up to constant exposure to wet, muddy conditions.

Freudenberg engineers therefore developed the three-component design that protects all functional parts.

In the new seal the sealing lips, the optimised lip working surface, dirt exclusion lips, dedicated counter-surfaces and internal lubrication are all inside a closed design.

Compared to its predecessor, the new cassette seal offers safer installation, eliminates the customer’s need to install additional sealing components and improves component longevity, Freudenberg noted.

The company's bench test results have confirmed that Cassette-S4 lasts four times longer in harsh agricultural conditions than its predecessor, according to Stefano Miletto, plant manager at Freudenberg’s Northfield plant in the US.