Bearings

Bearings are used for carrying loads while allowing

relative motion(rotation) with minimum friction
• Types of bearings:
• Rolling contact or anti-friction bearing
• Journal or sleeve bearings(sliding contact
bearing)
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 Bearings
Rolling Contact Bearings – load is transferred through
rolling elements such as balls, straight and tapered cylinders
and spherical rollers.

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Journal (sleeve) Bearings – load is transferred through
a thin film of lubricant (oil).

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 Bearings
Journal (Sleeve) Bearings
Load is transferred through a lubricant in sliding contact

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 Design Considerations
Bearings are selected from catalogs, before referring to
catalogs you should know the followings:
• Bearing load – radial, thrust (axial) or both

Thrust load

Radial load Radial load

• Bearing life and reliability

• Bearing speed (rpm)
• Space limitation
• Accuracy

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 Rolling Contact Bearings
1. Ball bearings
• Deep groove ball bearing
• Angular contact bearings (AC)
• Self alignment ball bearing

2. Roller bearings
• Cylindrical bearings(straight roller
bearing)
• Needle bearings In general, ball bearings
• Tapered bearings are capable of higher
• Spherical bearings speeds and roller
bearings can carry greater
3. Thrust bearings loads
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 Comparison of rolling contact and
journal bearings
• Rolling contact bearings have low starting friction and are
used for applications with high starting loads(coefficient of
friction between 0.001 and 0.002)
• Journal bearings with hydrodynamic lubrication are suited
for high rotating speeds with impact loads(the higher the
rotating speed, the more effective the hydrodynamic
pumping action
• Rolling contact bearings take up more radial space around
the shaft, but journal bearings usually require greater axial
space
• Rolling contact bearings produce more noise
• Journal bearings are less expensive than ball or roller
bearing for simple applications
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Types of Ball bearings

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 Ball Bearings
Deep groove (Conrad) bearing

• Load capacity is limited by the number of balls

• Primarily designed to support radial loads, the thrust

capacity is about 70% of radial load capacity

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 Ball Bearings
Angular contact bearings (AC)
The centerline of contact between the balls and the raceway is
at an angle to the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation.

Extra support
in the back
Direction
of thrust

• Used for high radial and thrust load applications

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Self alignment bearing

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 Roller Bearings
Roller bearings have higher load capacity than ball bearings, load is
transmitted through line contact instead of point contact.

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Cylindrical bearing

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Needle bearing

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 Roller Bearings
Tapered bearings
Designed to withstand high radial loads, high thrust loads, and
combined loads at moderate to high speeds. They can also withstand
repeated shock loads.

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Car wheel bearings

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 Tapered Bearings
Indirect and Direct mounting

Indirect mounting
provides greater rigidity
when pair of bearings is
closely spaced: front
wheel of a car, drums,
sheaves,..
Indirect mounting

Direct mounting
provides greater rigidity
when pair of bearings is
not closely spaced:
transmission, speed
reducers, rollers,..
Direct mounting
aa = effective bearing spread
Measure of the rigidity
of the bearing mounting

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 Roller Bearings
Bearing design uses barrel shaped rollers. Spherical roller bearings
combine very high radial load capacity with modest thrust load capacity
and excellent tolerance to misalignment.

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 Roller Thrust Bearings
Spherical Thrust Bearings

Cylindrical
Thrust
Bearings

Tapered Thrust
Bearings

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Ball thrust bearing

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 Mounting Bearings

Pillow Block Flange

Common mounting, inner ring Alternative method, inner ring is Two-bearing mounting
held in position by nuts threaded press fitted onto the shaft.
onto the shaft.

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