Collaborating to Drive Industry’s Future

Leadership in manufacturing is all about pushing boundaries — discovering new ways of doing things, following up on the latest discoveries, taking advantage of new technologies and research techniques and cornering the market on promising talent.

“We work on cutting-edge topics and invest our own internal resources to maintain leadership in the field,” says Ryan Evans, director of R&D, “but we also work with external partners. They, like us, are trying to decide what technical risks we should take today to propel tomorrow’s developments.” 

Timken researchers currently partner with a dozen universities and national laboratories, including Purdue University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as well as Aachen University in Germany and Sheffield University in the U.K. Projects range from alloy development to dynamic modeling to application engineering. 

The benefits of partnership

In addition to specialized experts, professors and students, technical partners often offer state-of-the-art, sometimes highly regulated assets and equipment. Oak Ridge is one example: It’s one of very few facilities in the world with neutron scattering equipment, which rely on nuclear fission — something few labs in the world are authorized to do.

“Many current-day insights driving sustainability and energy efficiency for Timken customers have their roots in our long-standing academic relationships in the rheology field,” says [Ryan] Evans.

University partnerships also give Timken researchers the opportunity to discover and recruit talented students — the next generation of technology leadership. “We constantly strive to hire the best and the brightest, and our joint research projects are a great way to discover them in the wild,” says Evans. Working closely with universities helps Timken R&D connect and engage with the top echelon of students doing promising work in fields that are important to the company.

The benefits go both ways. “Our technical partners gain access to Timken’s industrial perspective — insight into our understanding of what the market needs and what adds value,” says Evans. “Researchers distill that information down to technical fundamentals that they can work on in a nonproprietary way to do pre-competitive research. Together, we publish that research and drive the state-of-the-art.”

Helping Timken customers lead their industries

Some partnerships, such as the one with Purdue University, go back decades. “Many of our bearing dynamic analysis models originated with core science developed in partnership with Purdue many years ago,” says Evans. Those models give Timken engineers the ability to analyze and predict bearing performance, to help customers understand how their application will perform in the field. 

A few years ago, when e-mobility customers began asking Timken engineers to predict bearing efficiency in their systems, Evans and his team turned to Georgia Tech to help them understand how oil viscosity changes under pressure. Company leaders decided to invest in some of the equipment they saw at Georgia Tech and today, Timken’s rheology lab plays an important role in advancing electric vehicle technology.

Today, the rheology team is working with the University of Akron on water-based lubricant innovations. “Many current-day insights driving sustainability and energy efficiency for Timken customers have their roots in our long-standing academic relationships in the rheology field,” says Evans.

The future: AI and machine learning

In the next few years, Evans expects to see more partnerships focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning. “We’re looking at artificial intelligence for quality assurance technology, and to leverage our knowledge and archives to train new engineers,” says Evans. “We’re also looking at it for machine monitoring and control, shop floor automation and factories of the future.”

As technology reveals new possibilities in the world, Timken’s academic partners help the company stay ahead of the curve so that customers can, too. “Those external relationships allow us to experiment and try technically uncertain concepts at the same time our in-house researchers fine-tune and prove the nearer-term technologies that continue to lead our industry into the future,” says Evans.

Future-Defining Research

Timken’s world-class R&D team collaborates with national labs and universities around the world. Here’s an inside look at a few future-defining projects we’re currently researching.

Developing the materials of the future

Ryan Evans, Director of R&D

Partners: Ames and Argonne National Laboratories

Program Goals:

Develop two new alloys that will significantly improve the service life of bearings in harsh environments, such as wind turbines and liquid hydrogen pumps.

Why partner?

This project aligns a vertically integrated team of top research institutions and industry partners to accelerate the development of lightweight, high-entropy and super-elastic alloys that will help transform the landscape of global energy production.

Customer outcomes:

The team has set their sights on developing alloys that will reduce operational and maintenance costs for wind turbines by 20-40%, increasing bearing life more than 100% for those applications.

The new alloys will also enable the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy EarthshotsTM initiative, which has a goal to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% by 2030. Current materials obstacles prevent the proliferation of hydrogen-based energy storage, distribution and transportation applications such as gas turbines that propel passenger aircraft.

“We are excited to research modern, non-steel materials such as these high-entropy and super-elastic alloys to see if they can bring value to our products, both in standard and extreme environmental conditions. It makes sense to take on that challenge by partnering with Ames and Argonne National Labs, two of the top research institutions in the world.”

– Ryan Evans

Solving for the premature failure of wind turbine main shaft bearings

Scott Hyde, Senior Scientist, Materials R&D

Partners: Argonne National Lab

Program Goals:

Understand the effect of stray electrical currents on white etching crack (WEC) damage in wind turbine main shaft bearings. Investigate tribological and material factors, including steel morphology, composition, heat treatment and lubricant chemistry.

Why partner?

A Timken customer requested Timken’s participation in this study, which could be conducted more efficiently at Argonne National Lab than on-site at Timken. Timken provides sample preparation, material analysis and bearing expertise, while gaining knowledge and a potential solution to a pressing wind energy customer issue.

Customer outcomes:

The resulting knowledge from this research could help the industry deliver wind turbine bearing systems that are more resistant to the extreme conditions present in wind energy applications.

“It’s energizing to interact with, discuss results, and share experiences with other leaders in the research community on this exciting and relevant topic.”

– Scott Hyde

Evaluating black oxide coatings at the atomic level

Vikram Bedekar, Manager Material Development R&D

Lizeth Sanchez, Principal Materials Engineer

Partners: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Program Goals:

Reduce processing time and improve performance of the black oxide coating used in wind turbine bearings, using atom probe tomography analysis to reveal its composition and structure.

Why partner?

The black oxide coating used to mitigate wear and improve performance in wind turbine bearings is extremely thin, which makes it difficult to characterize. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) offers advanced atom probe tomography instruments, allowing Timken researchers to evaluate black oxide coating chemistry at the atomic level to see how the atoms are organized.

Customer outcomes:

With insights from this research, the team is identifying ways to reduce the cost of black oxide coatings, achieving similar, functional coatings with reduced process cycle times. By understanding the constituents of the coating, the team also hopes to identify ways to improve coating performance over time.

“This was my first time working at this historic lab, and I was able to tour the facility and see all the different microscopes. It was amazing to analyze the material at that level, to understand its atomic composition, and to be part of the process from beginning to end.”

– Lizeth Sanchez


The Innovation Spotlight program rewards the R&D researchers delivering customer value and driving Timken’s success. Read more.