Self-Aligning Ball Bearings

Self-aligning ball bearing has a spherical raceway in the outer ring and a double-raceway in the inner ring. This feature gives the bearings the self-aligning property, which can keep the machine operating well even when angular misalignment of the shaft relative to the housing occurs. Values of permissible misalignment errors of double row self-aligning ball bearings are given in the section “selection of bearing type”. The self-aligning ball bearing is mainly used to carry radial loads and light axial loads, but they cannot carry pure axial loads.

Structure And Properties

Self-aligning ball bearings are generally cylindrical inner holes, but there are also conical inner holes, the taper of conical inner holes is generally 1:12.Self-aligning ball bearings with tapered holes can be fixed directly to the taper journal by means of locking nuts. Alternatively, selecting the appropriate size of bearings can be conveniently mounted on the cylindrical shaft by means of locking or unlocking sleeves. The radial clearance of the bearing can also be adjusted by using the tight sleeve. This kind of bearing cages are mostly made of steel plate, they are pressed cages, and also can be supply glass fiber reinforced polyimide press cages for double row self -aligning ball bearings. This kind of cages has the advantages of good process, light weight, good self-lubrication and so on. The dual-column self-aligning ball bearing is mainly used to bear radial load, but it can also bear small axial load while bearing radial load, and it cannot bear pure axial load. 

However, in order to prevent the inertia force generated on the ball and the cage and the adverse effect of friction with lubricant on the bearing rolling at high speed operation, The bearing has to bear a certain minimum radial load, which causes the harmful sliding between the ball and the raceway.

Applications

Self-aligning ball bearings are suitable for precision instruments, automobiles, motorcycles, metallurgy, rolling mills, mines, petroleum, paper, cement, sugar pressing and other industries and general machinery