SPHERICAL ROLLER

BEARING
WHAT IS SPHERICAL ROLLER BEARING?

• Is a rolling-element bearing that permits rotation with low

friction, and permits angular misalignment. Typically these
bearings support a rotating shaft in the bore of the inner ring
that may be misaligned in respect to the outer ring. The
misalignment is possible due to the spherical internal shape of
the outer ring and spherical rollers.
• Not exactly spherical in shaped, the rolling elements of
spherical roller bearings are mainly cylindrical in shape or a
barrel shaped rollers.

Barrel shaped roller

• Various kinds of bearings are available having double row
rolling elements as an additional option, but Spherical
Roller bearings are an exception that always have double
row of rollers as standard in construction.

• They have two rows of rollers with a common sphered

raceway in the outer ring of the bearing and hence the
name spherical roller bearing. The sphere shape is
concave on the outer race.
 PARTS OF THE SPHERICAL ROLLER BEARING
 Cage – The cage of a spherical roller bearing experiences significant inertial
forces, friction, and load, and the effectiveness of a cage is strongly related to
the bearing's overall competence. The cage is meant to space rollers evenly to
ensure uniform load distribution; guide rollers through the unloaded zones of
the raceway; and reduce friction at high speed from the self-lubricating
properties of the bearing design and material. There are three types of cage
design for spherical roller bearings:

• Window-type cages offer high bearing speed with precision, low friction, and
high load capacity; symmetrical load distribution in all conditions; smaller overall
bearing diameters; improved roller control and temperature.
• Rib-type cages do not offer the precision or load capacity of window-type cages, but
are less likely to be congested by debris intrusions and have comparatively-low
inertia.
• Pin-type cages require pierced rollers and are most common in large-sized roller
bearings which require low cage inertia but a large number of rolling elements.
 Rollers- The rollers of the bearing are the load bearing components of the device
and allow the inner and outer raceways to rotate with minimal friction. With the
exception of barrel roller bearings, all spherical roller bearings contain two rows of
rollers.

 Lubrication hole- located in the outer raceway allow the bearing to be periodically
relubricated, if necessary. These holes also provide the bearing with a flushing
action, where it is inherently able to flush small contaminants from the raceways.
An annular groove also assists the lubricant with an even distribution around the
circumference of the bearing.
 Bore- The bore of a spherical roller bearing can be either straight or tapered.
Tapered bores are helpful in difficult installations since spherical roller bearings
cannot be taken apart like many other bearing styles.

 Inner raceway- The distinct geometry of the inner and outer raceways facilitate
the bearing's self-aligning properties.
 APPLICATIONS
Such bearings can be used in gearboxes, wind turbines, pumps, mechanical fans and
blowers, pulp and paper processing equipments, conveyors, and other process
equipments.

Gearboxes Wind Turbines

Fan and Blower

Pulp and Paper Machine

Conveyors
BEARING FEATURES:

 Accommodate misalignment

 High load carrying capacity Self aligning property of the bearing

• Designed to accommodate both radial and axial loads in
both directions
 Long service life
• The rollers are manufactured to such tight dimensional
and geometrical tolerances that they are practically Self-adjusting property
of the rollers
identical in a roller set.
• The symmetrical rollers self-adjust providing optimal
load distribution along the roller length and together
with the special profile prevent stress peaks at the roller
ends
Load distribution over
the roller length
 Low friction
• Self-guiding rollers keep friction and frictional heat at low
levels.
(A floating guide ring guides unloaded rollers so that they
enter the load zone in the optimal position). Optimal roller guidance
 Variants or types of spherical roller bearings

 There are not much variants in spherical roller bearings except of the type
of cage material being used in the bearing. Some of the types of cage
materials that are used are:

• Brass Cages
• Sheet metal cages.
• Glass Fiber reinforced Polyamide Cages.