Sven Gustaf Wingqvist

Chronology

• 1876: Born December 10 in Kumla Municipality south of Örebro, Sweden. His parents were railway station inspector at Hallsberg S. D. Wingqvist and Anna Lundberg.
• 1894: Graduated from Rudbecksskolan in Örebro (Örebro Technical Elementary School).
• 1899: Wingqvist was employed as an operating engineer at Gamlestadens Textile Industry in Göteborg. He worked there for many years to find a solution to the problems with frequent break downs in the ball bearings for the main drive shafts. This was caused by the ground conditions, as the factory was built on clay. The shaft bearing supports moved some fractions of millimeters from time to time, hardly measurable, but enough to induce enormous extra forces in the "stiff" bearings that were available at that time. Wingqvist spent more and more time on the development of bearings in general, collecting all sorts of technical achievements and new ideas that were presented continuously on ball bearing technology around Europe. In particular he carefully studied the report presented in 1902 by professor
  axial
  loads.
• 1907: On the initiative of Sven Wingqvist and the owners of Gamlestadens Textile Industry, SKF was founded February 16, at first as a subsidiary company to Gamlestadens Textile Industry. He was appointed the managing director as well as technical manager. Axel Carlander, son of one of the owners of Gamlestadens Textile Industry, was appointed
  Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV) for a Multi-row self-aligning radial ball bearing. The patent was granted June 6 with patent reg. No. 25406. Inventor: S.G. Wingqvist.^[2] In the patent application a double-row as well as a triple-row ball bearing is described. Within the same period of time, patent applications were sent out by SKF to 10 different countries, among them France, Germany, England
  and the United States, and patent was granted in all these countries within a short time. The door was now open for worldwide expansion. After the new factory had been built in Göteborg, SKF sales companies and new manufacturing plants were built in many countries around the world. The first SKF manufacturing plant outside Sweden was set up in Luton, England 1911.
• 1919: Wingqvist marries Hildur Hult (1892–1963).[3]
• 1919–1932: Wingqvist works as an independent consulting engineer and as part-time CEO for SKF.
• 1938–1953: CEO for SKF.
• 1933–38: Managing director for AB Bofors.
• 1938–46: CEO for AB Bofors.
• 1941–53: CEO for the company Svenska Flygmotor AB.

Some of Sven Wingqvist's Swedish patents (Sweden reg. No.)

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (April 2024)

• 25406 Multi-row self-aligning radial ball bearing, 1907
• 26266 Self-aligning ball bearing for axial loads, 1908
• 27397 Tool for precision measurements, 1908
• 31707 2-row
  spherical
  roller bearing, 1910
• 33901 Ball holder device, Wingqvist and H. Olsson, 1910
• 57197 Roller bearing with pressure flange, Wingqvist and N.A. Palmgren, 1919
• 78223 Device for 2-row roller bearings, 1931

Image gallery

• 
  Early sketch, around 1906, by Sven Wingqvist for a double-row self-aligning bearing.
• 
  Sven Wingqvist self-aligning ball bearing. First version 1906 to the left and final version 1907. Compare the hand drawn sketch from 1906. Redrawn original drawings from SKF archive.
• 
  SKF bearing field test on a Scania truck (1909). S. Wingquist on backseat right.
• 
  Sven Wingquist at his drawing board around 1940.

References

Footnotes

Sources

• Vingqvist, Herman: Släkten Wingqvist från Södra Ving jämte upptecknarens antavla, Skara 1936. p. 20.
• SKF - The History of a Swedish Export Industry, 1907–1957 by Birger Steckzén, 1957. Published by SKF, 1957.
• "The history of SKF, 1977, Sv. kullagerfabriken, Göteborg, 1977.
• "SKF - a global story: 1907–2007", Martin Fritz, Birgit Karlsson; translated by Linda Schenck, Informationsförlaget, Stockholm, 2006.
  ISBN 978-91-7736-576-1