SKF SimPro Expert is an advanced simulation software tool developed in-house by SKF to maximize support for, and co-operation with, its customers. SimPro Expert gives customers greater freedom of choice and flexibility when incorporating SKF bearings into their machine designs, but more particularly it gives them the power to evaluate the performance of SKF bearing arrangements in minute detail across a wide range of applications and service conditions, in the virtual world.

Effectively placing the breadth of SKF engineering knowledge into the hands of the customer, SimPro Expert gives the user an extremely accurate means of evaluating bearing performance in any given machine model. Its enhanced application modelling capabilities and detailed SKF bearing geometry, performance data and in combination with more than 100 years of developing bearing theories verified and validated by our extensive testing capabilities and real field experience, gives the user a world leading engineering tool.

As the software is practically the same as that used by SKF engineers, SimPro Expert allows seamless interaction between the customer and the SKF Application Engineering team. Moreover, it encourages the customer to tackle more complex engineering challenges, confident in the knowledge that the support and guidance of SKF Application Engineering is ready to hand.

With the tool at their desks, customers gain greater flexibility in their design processes, and the ability to work faster and more accurately on a particular project. Once a model has been created by a customer and some initial simulations run, it can be transmitted to SKF Application Engineering for further discussion and refinement.

SimPro Expert covers many different aspects of rolling bearings in machine design and is able to simulate a very broad range of bearing operating parameters and in-service conditions, including misalignment, load and moment, friction, raceway contact stresses, fatigue life, lubrication and much more. The software creates models that take into account temperature, speed, lubrication type, contamination levels, material properties and so on; it also enables the customer to run 3D system animations of these models.