Feature

Thin section bearings boost medical device performance

With hospital space at a premium, even before the advent of any surges in demand, the need to maximise ward, bed, theatre and laboratory space by minimising the size of medical machinery has rarely been of greater significance than it is today.

08/03/2021 12:47:18

Unsurprisingly, just as personal electronic devices and household electrical items have got both smaller and thinner in recent times, the combination of clever design and advances in materials technology has seen the physical size of many vital medical and laboratory devices reduce too.

So, when a well-respected manufacturer of proprietary disinfection and decontamination cells recently needed to design all-new medical devices as part of a larger installation, attention turned to an aspect of design frequently overlooked in many industrial applications where size doesn’t really matter. The challenge was finding the thinnest possible bearing that could also allow the critical machinery in which it was installed to deliver the highest positional accuracy over an extended lifetime. The design brief centred around applying these joint demands of reduced space and high precision into two key parts of the new cell.

Read the full article in the March issue of DPA.

Written By Sophia Bell

Sophia Bell is the Group Editor of DPA, Connectivity, and PBSI. She joined the team in 2020 as Assistant Editor after achieving a First-Class Honours BA in English Literature and Film Studies from the University of East Anglia. In her current role, she leads the editorial strategy, driving digital growth and ensuring each title continues to deliver trusted, relevant insight for engineering and manufacturing professionals.