Overview Of Spherical Roller Bearings

　　Spherical roller bearings are rolling element bearings that allow rotation with low friction and allow for angular misalignment. These bearings support a rotating shaft in a bore in the inner race, which may be misaligned relative to the outer race. Misalignment may occur due to the spherical inner shape of the outer ring and spherical rollers. Despite their name, spherical roller bearings are not spherical. The rolling elements of spherical roller bearings are mainly cylindrical, but their profile makes them look like slightly over-inflated cylinders.

　　How do spherical roller bearings work?

　　All spherical roller bearings have the same working principle. They all have outer rings with concave (spherical) inner raceways. The inner ring also has convex outer raceways (or rolling elements that create matching convex sliding surfaces). The difference between the different types of spherical bearings is the design of their sliding surfaces. Some are ring-to-ring (such as spherical plain bearings and rod ends), while others use rolling elements such as balls or rollers between the inner and outer rings.

　　Application of spherical roller bearings

　　gearbox, driveshaft

　　Wind Turbines,

　　continuous casting machine,

　　Pump,

　　mechanical fans and blowers,

　　mining and construction equipment,

　　textile manufacturing

　　woodworking machinery

　　Overhead Crane Moving Wheel

　　pulp and paper processing equipment,

　　ship propulsion

　　offshore drilling,

　　SUV.

　　Types of spherical roller bearings

　　Spherical Roller Bearings: They are designed for applications where severe misalignment exists. This may be due to incorrect installation or shaft skew. They handle relatively heavy radial loads and some axial loads in either direction. They are also extremely resistant to shock loads, and their self-aligning feature allows full-capacity loads with shaft deflection. Their purpose is very similar to self-aligning double row ball bearings, except that spherical roller bearings are designed to be stronger by carrying heavier loads but at lower speeds.

　　Spherical plain bearing: (also known as "spherical plain bearing") is a spherical bearing in which the outer surface of the inner ring is convex and the inner ring of the outer ring is the corresponding spherical surface, but the inner surface is concave. Their design makes them particularly suitable for bearing arrangements where alignment movements between the shaft and housing must accommodate, or where oscillating or repeated tilting motions must be allowed at relatively slow sliding speeds.

　　Spherical Rod End: A spherical bearing consisting of an eye head with an integral shank and a standard spherical plain bearing or a spherical plain bearing inner ring. As the name suggests, they are used on the end of the rod and have either male or female threads for mounting.