Know All About Roller Thrust Bearings and Their Industrial Importance

Roller Thrust Bearings

Since the invention of automobiles and locomotives, there has been numerous other inventions that has helped mankind in a lot of ways. These inventions required a lot of tweaking and fine tuning to fully acquire their advantages and enjoy the luxury of these machines without any fear. One such component that has helped in fine tuning and proper functioning and maintenance of machineries is the invention of bearings. Bearings are normally smaller supporting accessories but play a very vital part in increasing the efficiency and performance of the machines. Their uses in applications are countless, starting from heavy equipment and machines in mills and factories to cars, cycles, and other locomotives etc.

Bearing Types:

Rotary bearings are something that holds the rotating elements like the axles or shafts that are generally placed within the mechanical systems. These bearings also do the radial or axial load transfer from the source to the actual structure that supports it. The simplest type of bearing is said to be the plain bearing that generally consists of a shaft that rotates in a hole. In cases where the sliding frictions will have to be maintained, the roller bearings and ball bearings are normally used. Here the rolling elements are generally balls or rollers that are placed in cross section between the races of bearing assembly.

Roller Bearing Types:

Roller bearings are one of the types of bearings that consist of a rolling element in the form of cylinders in order to maintain the gap in between the moving parts. A rolling element bearing is further classified into thrust types called the roller thrust bearing that is mainly capable of handling thrust loads. The thrust roller bearings are further classified as spherical roller thrust bearings and cylindrical roller thrust bearings depending on the load applied and the direction in which they are applied.

More About Roller Thrust Types:

A cylindrical roller thrust bearing is usually designed to support heavy impact loads and axial loads. This proves that they cannot be subjected to any kind of radial loads. These bearings are normally very stiff and might require a little axial space. The ends of the roller are slightly modified to prevent the stress peaks.

The cylindrical roller, housing and shaft washer can be mounted separately. The spherical roller thrust bearing is a type that allows rotation with a very low friction and also allows angular misalignment. This type of bearing is normally designed for supporting heavy axial loads in one direction along with some radial loads. They typically bear a rotating shaft in the shaft washer and can also tolerate misalignment in terms of the housing washer. The internal spherical shape of the house washer makes some possible misalignment.