A cascading method of installing several radial thrust bearings

Abstract

The structure of modern technical systems in mechanical engineering includes many bearing units with rolling bearings. The practice of designing and operating the supports of various mechanisms and machines shows that under the conditions of significant axial loads, double or serially arranged radial thrust ball bearings with the contact pressure lines of the rolling elements directed into them in one direction are well justified. The proposed bearing unit provides a uniform the distribution of the external axial load between the rolling bearings in the set, as a result of which the durability of the set of bearings under the action of only the external axial load increases by n3 times, where n is the number of bearings. In addition, the influence of bearing wear on the stability of the uniformity of this distribution is excluded. The need for time-consuming preparatory operations to determine the axial stiffness of the bearings, to assemble them according to the same value of the axial stiffness, to select and match the lengths of the remote bushings in place is eliminated, which makes it possible to reduce the requirements for the accuracy of the bushing manufacturing, and, therefore, to reduce their cost. All this is achieved by making the intermediate elements between the outer rings elastic, for example, in the form of compression springs, and pre-compressed, which, especially with gentle mechanical characteristics, well compensate for all manufacturing errors, ensure self-installation of structural elements, as well as elastic connection of bearings , except for one, with a case that helps soften shock loads. The proposed device surpasses all known ones in terms of efficiency, reliability, ease of implementation, i.e., manufacturability.