What You Need To Know About Spherical Roller Bearings
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Spherical Roller Bearings are incredibly robust pieces of engineering. These bearings are specially designed to work in the toughest operating conditions while still performing at a high and exacting standard. You will often find them in applications such as printing presses, paper mills, railway vehicles, wind turbines, mining and construction equipment, continuous casters, pumps, and more.
Rolling machines used to bend metal sheets is a great example of where the application of these bearings is utilised, this is where the design feature of having symmetrical rollers benefit the forming and bending of sheet metal. It allows sheet metals to be bent into various types of cylinder and arc shapes. This motion is similar to how printing presses and papermills operate, with the misalignment of the spherical bearings by design, it caters for the extra precision needed for the movement of machinery when they are operating.
This style of bearing was first introduced by SKF in 1919 and has slowly been refined over the years to increase the load carrying capacity and decrease the operational friction.
Design Features and Benefits:
The rollers in these bearings are essential and play a large part in the bearings’ performance. Rollers in general increase a bearings load capacity by distributing the load along the roller length. This is because, in comparison to balls, the rollers have a greater surface contact with the inner and outer race. The rollers in these bearings also self-adjust which helps with load distribution as well.
By design, spherical roller bearings are self-aligning, meaning they are insensitive to misalignment caused by shaft deflection. This is due to the spherical shape of the rollers and the spherical inner profile of the outer race.
SKF and FAG each have a line of Spherical Roller Bearings for vibratory applications. The bearings have the same basic dimensions and performance, but they also have C4 internal radial clearance as standard. The suffixes for this spec are VA405 and T41D respectively.
Spherical Roller Bearings typically have an annular groove and lubrication holes. For SKF, this now comes as standard in the E design bearings so there is no suffix required, and this is also true for all of the FAG Spherical Roller Bearings.?
Sealed Spherical Roller Bearings have a contact seal that is reinforced with a sheet steel insert on both sides. SKF offers these seals in three different materials, each with a slightly different suffix. The sealed type bearings use a minimal about of lubricant and require lower maintenance and the open type.
SKF currently has the widest range of Spherical Roller Bearings on the market ranging in size from 20mm to 1800mm internal diameter.
Here at?Quality Bearings Online, we keep a large stock of Spherical Roller bearings in brands like?SKF,?FAG,?NSK, and?Timken, and our comprehensive supply network means we can find those hard to source items helping to keep your downtime as brief as possible.
If you are struggling with a breakdown or have a requirement for these types of products, please feel free to get in touch with our knowledgeable sales team who would be happy to help you.