Sintered Metallic, High Performance Clutch Materials for the Marine Industry

The dependability of GMP Friction Materials’ wet multi-plate clutches, marine transmissions, and power take-offs can result not only in saving money, but also in saving lives. A marine transmission manufacturer found out the hard way that the adhesive on the paper friction material they were using could not hold up to all the conditions of the marine environment, resulting in transmission failure and ships adrift—a situation both costly and dangerous. Switching to GMP’s  sintered friction materials, which never experience bond failure, has solved this problem. As our products can tolerate extraordinary abuse, vessels are much more likely to make their way back to land even if the transmission malfunctions.

The marine market has also witnessed GMP’s swift resourcefulness. When an oil rig’s clutch plates were destroyed and the usual supplier could not replace them in time, the drilling rig company came to GMP Friction. Though we had never made this particular part before, our engineering and manufacturing professionals rose to the occasion and got the clutch plates to the rig in record time, saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.