igus Opens Manus Awards for Innovative Bearing Applications

Calling all designers, plastic plain bearing specialist igus is holding its sixth biennial manus competition for innovative plastic bearing applications. The manus awards, which were initially launched in 2003, celebrate innovative and creative applications with lubrication and maintenance-free polymer bearings that distinguish themselves through technical and/or economic efficiency.
Those who are interested can submit a short description of the application, outlining the previous problem and challenges, a description of the solution and details of the type of bearing, including photos or sketches.
The winner will receive prize money of 5,000 €, with second and third places receiving 2,500 and 1,000 € respectively, and the award ceremony will take place at the Hannover Fair 2013 in Germany, 8th -12th April.
The manus awards are a joint initiative with academic partners including the Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe (Institute for composite materials), (Kaiserslautern) and the Fachhochschule Köln (academy Cologne).
"Today, metallic bushes that require oil are widely replaced by lubrication and maintenance-free iglidur plastic bearings as they are more reliable and have a long and calculable lifetime," says Matthew Aldridge, director at igus. "igus offers the largest selection of environmentally compatible and calculable dry-tech plastic bearings worldwide and we set up this prestigious award 12 years ago to celebrate those industrial applications that are realising significant technical and economic benefits from using them. More than 300 entries were received for the last competition and we're expecting even more this year the awards become more coveted."
Entry details and documents can be found online at www.manus-award.com and the closing date is 28th February 2013.