Success of The Kingsbury Bearing
Kingsbury would eventually run his own business with the Westinghouse Machine Co. building his bearings. This allowed him to actively pursue applications for his newly patented thrust bearing. His first chance came when the Pennsylvania Water and Power Co. gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his bearing on their power generator at the Susquehanna River.
His first bearing was a failure as it was immediately destroyed by Babbitt wiping. Fortunately for Kingsbury, the Pennsylvania Water and Power Co. gave him a second chance. His bearing succeeded this time, and worked flawlessly for the next 25 years. When it was inspected after 25 years, there was so little evidence of wear that it was calculated that the bearing would last 1,300 to 1,700 years. The same bearing is still operating smoothly today. By World War I, the Kingsbury thrust bearing was used extensively in the navy especially to transmit thrust from propeller shafts to ships' hulls (i.e., the propeller pushes water in one direction, and the Kingsbury thrust bearing, attached to the shaft and mounted to the ship, pushes the ship in the opposite direction). In 1921, the Kingsbury thrust bearing had become so popular that Westinghouse could no longer keep up with the demand, thus prompting Kingsbury to set up his own manufacturing plant.
Read more about this topic: Albert Kingsbury
Famous quotes containing the words success of, success and/or bearing:
“When you think of the huge uninterrupted success of a book like Don Quixote, you’re bound to realize that if humankind have not yet finished being revenged, by sheer laughter, for being let down in their greatest hope, it is because that hope was cherished so long and lay so deep!”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav’n, and by success untaught,
His proud imaginations”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“As if, as if, as if the disparate halves
Of things were waiting in a betrothal known
To none, awaiting espousal to the sound
Of right joining, a music of ideas, the burning
And breeding and bearing birth of harmony,
The final relation, the marriage of the rest.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)