FORD RAISES AIR CYLINDER LIFE WITH M0S2 LUBRICANT

THE FORD Motor Company (USA) set a goal of a million operations for air cylinders used on production machinery when down time, due to cylinder failure, was considered excessive. Cylinder failure could tie up a whole production line, and failures had been unpredictable, sometimes occuring only after 150,000 operations. The job of engineering a cylinder design to meet this new goal went to their Manufacturing Engineering and Development Office. High speed (7,000 frames per second) movie analysis of cylinder operation plus careful study of failures, showed a number of problem areas and potential improvements. Lubrication was considered to be an important source of the problem.