Tapered roller bearing – high loads with low friction

How is a tapered roller bearing built?

The tapered roller bearing is a type of rolling bearing. Its elements usually have the shape of cut cones that move on the raceway. These bearings carry complex loads, i.e. simultaneously occurring radial and axial loads. In addition, they are distinguished by low friction, low noise and a small amount of heat generated.

The tapered roller bearing consists of an outer ring and an inner ring. On the race of the outer ring there is a basket with rollers. The inner ring is used to attach the bearing to the shaft, while the outer ring is used to the bearing in the housing. Its construction makes that this type of bearing transfer very good loads even to the next parts of the machine. The size of the transferred load depends directly of the raceway angle size.

It is a typical split bearing – each of the bearing rings as well as a basket with rolling elements can be separated from each other without using much force. Therefore, the bearing must be loaded with an axial force resting all the time. The split design also affects the fact that these bearings are not produced with embedded seals. Nevertheless, such a construction simplify bearings montage.

Bearings types

Due to the load bearing direction, we distinguish the bearings:

– single-row

– double-row

– multi-row.

A single row bearing takes axial loads from one direction. It is usually a paired bearing – as one of a pair of oppositely mounted identical conical bearings. Adequately, the double row bearing takes over loads in both directions. While, multi-row bearings allow for bearing at low and equable speeds. The most common variant is a four-row bearing.

Using

The bearing allows independent rotation of one or two elements round the bearing axis of rotation. In addition, the bearing enables transfer of load data to selected components with minimized friction. Tapered roller bearings are used on shafts where it is necessary to carry large axial and radial loads. Therefore, they are used in machines and devices that are subjected to very high overloads. Tapered roller bearings are also used where ball bearings can not cope.