A white-metal bearing alloy, either mostly tin with antimony and copper or mostly lead with tin and antimony, cast or bonded onto a steel or bronze shell. Its softness lets dirt particles embed instead of scoring the journal and lets the bearing conform to slight misalignment. It loses strength quickly with heat, which is why turbines and big compressors carry temperature sensors buried in the babbitt of every pad.
Pulled the lower half, the babbitt is wiped across the whole load zone, send it out for a re-pour.
Also heard as
- white metal
- babbit
Related terms
Wipe
To smear the soft babbitt lining of a plain bearing when the oil film fails, ruining the bearing.
Oil wedge
Shop name for the tapered, pressurized film of oil that lifts a shaft off a sleeve bearing.
Hydrodynamic lubrication
Full-film lubrication in which motion drags oil into a narrowing gap and builds enough pressure to float the load.
Pickup
Metal transferred from one sliding surface onto another, seen as smeared lumps after adhesive wear.