Spherical thrust roller bearings

Spherical roller thrust bearing has specially designed raceways and asymmetrical rollers. Bearings can withstand large axial loads acting in one direction, radial loads acting simultaneously, and certain impact loads. The load is transferred between the raceways through the rollers at one angle to the bearing axis while ribs guide the rollers. Due to the special geometry of the rolling elements and raceways, spherical roller thrust bearings have self-aligning capabilities and have certain adaptability to installation errors in the shaft and seat hole. At the same time, it has a low friction coefficient, so it is suitable for high speed and heavy load conditions.

Structure of spherical roller thrust bearings

This type of bearing is single row and consists of a shaft-locating washer, a shell-locating washer, and an asymmetrical spherical roller with a cage. The cage holds the rollers and cage together with the shaft-locating washer, and the bearing is removable. Therefore, the bearing components can be installed individually.

• FV spherical roller thrust bearings are divided into two basic designs according to size and series.

• Bearings identified with the name E have larger rollers with an optimized internal design for increased load-carrying capacity. Different cages are installed depending on the bearing size: for sizes ≤68, a stamped steel window-type cage is installed; for sizes ≥72, a machined metal prong-type cage is installed.

• All other bearings (not designated by a suffix, and those E design bearings identified by the suffix EM or EF) have a machined brass fork cage.

Materials of spherical roller thrust bearings

The materials of spherical roller thrust bearings mainly include bearing steel and carburized steel.

Bearing steel is one of the most commonly used materials for manufacturing spherical roller thrust bearings, especially for high hardness and contact fatigue strength requirements. Commonly used bearing steels include SKF-3, GCr15, GCr15SiMn, GCr6 and GCr9, etc. The hardness of bearings made of these materials can reach HRC61-65.

Another commonly used material is carburized steel, including TIMKEN3311, G20CrNi2MoA, G20Cr2Ni4A, 20CrMnTi, etc. Compared with bearing steel, carburized steel has better toughness and is suitable for withstanding impact loads.

Application areas of spherical roller thrust bearings

Because such bearings consist of many asymmetric rollers with specially designed raceways for optimal consistency, they can withstand heavy axial loads and allow relatively high-speed operation.

Therefore, this bearing is widely used in heavy machinery, mining machinery, the petrochemical industry, aerospace, and other fields, especially suitable for gearboxes and vertical gear shafts.