Ball bearings: its uses
Ball bearings are a type of rolling element bearing which employs balls to maintain separation between moving parts of a bearing. These ball bearings are used to reduce and minimalist the rotational friction and the axial and radial loads. Ball bearings achieve this by using at least two races, which contain the balls and transfer any loads through the balls. Sometimes one of the races is fixed into place. As one of the races turns/rotates the balls rotate as well and because the balls are rolling they have a much lower coefficient of friction. It is the small surfaces of the balls between the races that allow them to have a lower load capacity for their size. The low cost of producing the ball bearing makes it less expensive than other types of bearing.
Types
There are many different types of ball bearings mechanisms available for various applications. Aircraft bearing is a term generally applied to bearings used by the aircraft industry or the Air Force. Airframe bearing is type of ball bearings designed for use in the control systems and surfaces of aircraft, Angular contact bearing is a type of ball bearings whose internal clearances and ball race locations as such as to result in a definite contact angle between the races and the balls when the bearing is used, Double row bearings a type of ball bearing of two rolling elements. Ball complement is the number of balls used in ball bearings. Fluid bearings do not use steel balls like the more conventional ball bearing, but instead support the bearings load on a thin layer of liquid or gas. This type of bearing is generally used in computer hard drives. Other fluid bearings include; foil bearings, Air bearings, and journal bearings.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 6:09 am and is filed under Automotive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.