066-Ball Bearing Technology

This course provides, with ample illustration, technological information on all phases of ball bearings. It starts out with the basics such as description, theory of operation, sizes, and types. The features and capabilities of the three different kinds of ball bearings are described along with an explanation of the compromise that is involved in the design of inner and outer ring pathway curvature and shoulder height. Next, a discussion follows of how ball bearing operating life is calculated and why it is given as a probability number and how preloading spindle bearings can improve the accuracy of manufacturing machines. Finally, bearing seals, material, and lubrication methods are given along with an explanation of how the use of double sealed ball bearings can be an advantage to the machine designer. Every effort has been made to provide step-by-step, easy to read material with factual information and descriptive illustrations to enhance the student's knowledge of ball bearing technology.

Since ball bearings are used in a wide variety of product, this course will provide useful information to a wide variety of engineering disciplines including Mechanical, Electrical, Automotive, Civil, Manufacturing, and any other with a Machine Design option or having an interest in mechanical products. There is always a need for new faces and new ideas in the bearing industry to improve product performance in such demanding fields such as high speed aircraft and space vehicles where light weight and extremely harsh environments continually push the performance of today's products to their limit. Even more earthly environments such as wind turbines are proving to be a design challenge to the bearing engineer because of unexpected and sometimes hard to explain failures that are occurring in ever increasingly sized megawatt units.