Frank Hild
TriStar’s Enhanced Materials Division (EMD) offers advanced technologies like plasma surface treatment and specialized polymer filtration membranes. While these capabilities are incredibly valuable in the right applications, they represent only one piece of the overall engineering value TriStar delivers.
At TriStar, we believe that advanced materials only reach their full potential when paired with expert engineering guidance, especially in applications involving plastic and composite bearings, wear components, and self-lubricating systems. Material enhancements alone do not solve problems; correct material selection, application engineering, and component design do.
In this blog post, we explore why value-added engineering services are the key to unlocking the real-world performance, reliability, and lifecycle value of advanced material solutions.
For a more in-depth look at the Enhanced Materials Division and what it can do, see our guide here.
Engineering Services That Enable Strategic Material Selection and Component Design
Many engineering challenges are not caused by a lack of advanced materials, but by uncertainty around which material, geometry, or surface treatment is best suited to the application.
This is where TriStar’s engineering team provides measurable value, particularly for plastic and composite bearing systems.
Common challenges where TriStar’s engineering assistance proves critical include:
- Identifying root causes of premature bearing failure, such as excessive wear, misalignment, thermal buildup, or lubricant incompatibility
- Selecting the optimal polymer or composite bearing material to improve service life, reduce friction, and eliminate lubrication-related failures
- Redesigning bearing geometry or component interfaces to improve load distribution, reduce edge loading, or accommodate environmental exposure
- Investigating manufacturing or assembly issues, such as surface contamination that prevents bonding, coating adhesion, or post-processing steps
- Evaluating tradeoffs between material cost and lifecycle value, especially when replacing greased metal bearings with self-lubricating alternatives
Rather than offering a single material as a universal solution, TriStar emphasizes an organization-wide commitment to a hands-on, consultative engineering approach. Our engineers work directly with customers to understand load, speed, temperature, environment, motion type, and regulatory requirements; then recommend the best-performing bearing material and design for the full lifecycle of the component.
Engineering-First Material Enhancement: More Than Surface Technology
The Enhanced Materials Division reflects TriStar’s broader culture of value-added engineering across polymer and composite solutions.
By combining:
- A deep portfolio of self-lubricating bearing materials (Rulon®, Ultracomp®, CJ®, TriSteel®, engineered thermoplastics)
- Advanced enhancement processes like plasma surface treatment
- And decades of application engineering experience across industries
TriStar delivers solutions that are more effective together than any single technology alone. For bearing and wear applications, this means starting with the fundamentals:
- What motion is required (rotary, oscillating, linear)?
- What loads, speeds, and PV limits are involved?
- What environmental factors (chemicals, washdowns, dust, temperature, vacuum) must be addressed?
- What shaft material and surface finish are present?
Only after answering these questions do enhancement processes become relevant.
Application-Driven Material Selection for Plastic & Composite Bearings
TriStar engineers start by studying specific application problem areas, then identifying polymer or composite bearing materials capable of delivering required performance characteristics such as:
- Corrosion and chemical resistance for wet, washdown, marine, or chemically aggressive environments
- Low friction and vibration reduction to improve noise control, wear life, and system efficiency
- Self-lubrication, eliminating grease—the leading cause of bearing failure and contamination
If off-the-shelf bearing materials cannot fully meet application demands, advanced enhancements such as plasma surface treatment may be applied to:
- Improve bonding or adhesion
- Modify surface energy
- Enable downstream processing or assembly
In specialized cases, TriStar can also engineer custom composite or polymer solutions, including precision filtration membranes or application-specific bearing materials manufactured to exact tolerances.
Expert Note from TriStar: At TriStar, we see material selection and component design as inseparable. A high-performance polymer bearing that is incorrectly specified, or improperly designed, will fail just as quickly as a poor material choice. Our engineering team focuses on understanding the entire system: load paths, mating surfaces, environmental exposure, and duty cycles. That systems-level approach is what allows self-lubricating bearings and advanced polymers to deliver predictable, long-term performance.
Why Engineering Services Matter More Than Materials Alone
Most manufacturers cannot maintain in-house expertise across the full spectrum of advanced polymers, composites, surface treatments, and bearing design principles.
As a result:
- Engineers may not know which self-lubricating materials are available
- Design teams may over-specify metal components when polymers would perform better
- Material limitations may be misunderstood or incorrectly applied
- Lifecycle cost benefits may be overlooked in favor of lower upfront pricing
TriStar’s engineering team bridges that gap.
By providing end-to-end application engineering, TriStar helps customers:
- Reduce downtime caused by lubrication failure
- Extend component life through better material matching
- Simplify maintenance and sanitation requirements
- Improve reliability in mission-critical systems
Customers don’t need to arrive with a solution in mind; only a problem to solve.
Learn More About Working with TriStar’s Advanced Materials Engineering Team
At TriStar, we believe that material selection and component design are strategic decisions, not commodity choices. And our EMD team represents the culmination of that belief in our own organization.
Our Enhanced Materials Division, and our broader bearing engineering organization, exists to help customers:
- Solve complex engineering challenges
- Replace underperforming metal components
- Design cleaner, more reliable, self-lubricating systems
For a more in-depth look at TriStar EMD, please see our guide here. Or, if you prefer to reach out to EMD directly to begin discussing how we can help solve your toughest engineering challenges, just use the button below.
