Ruland Manufacturing Expands Line of Bellow Couplings

Ruland Manufacturing has expanded its line of bellows couplings to include an outer diameter of 2-1/4 inches (57 mm), allowing for larger bore sizes and increased torque and torsional stiffness capabilities. Designers prefer to specify bellows couplings in servo driven systems due to their high accuracy and repeatability. This size expansion now allows for bore sizes up to 1-1/4 inch or 32 mm in a clamp style design with or without keyways.

Ruland bellows couplings are an assembly of two hubs and a thin-walled metallic bellows. Hubs are manufactured from aluminum for light weight and low inertia. They are joined together by a thin walled stainless steel bellows, allowing the coupling to remain flexible under high torsional loads. Bellows couplings can accommodate all forms of misalignment and size for size have the greatest torque and torsional stiffness capability in Ruland’s servo coupling product line.

The increased range gives bellows couplings consistent outer diameters and bore sizes with other Ruland servo couplings including disc, jaw, and oldham couplings. They are the most accurate of the Ruland manufactured servo couplings and are ideal for linear applications commonly found in printing, semiconductor, solar and robotics. They are zero-backlash and have no moving parts for a long maintenance-free life. 

Ruland manufactures bellows couplings with a balanced design for reduced vibration at speeds up to 10,000 rpm. They are available in inch, metric, and inch to metric bore sizes, with or without keyways from 1/8 inch to 1-1/4 inch and from 3 mm to 32 mm. Non-standard designs such as special bore sizes, custom bore tolerances, and stainless steel hubs are available upon request.