Radial rolling bearing

Details Radial rolling bearing Radial rolling bearing

1995-04-06

1997-01-28

Footland, Lenard A.

Bearings

Rotary bearing

Antifriction bearing

F16C 3351

Patent

active

055972438

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention concerns a radial rolling bearing having cylindrical rolling elements which roll between an inner and an outer ring while individual spacers are disposed between every two adjacent rolling elements, the spacers comprising, on both sides of their central longitudinal plane, contact surfaces while being guided during rotation of the radial rolling bearing by one of their end sections on a raceway of the inner or the outer ring.
A rolling bearing comprising such spacers is described in EP-A-0 164 968. An inner and a coaxial outer ring of the bearing form inner and outer raceways with an annular gap therebetween. A plurality of rolling elements bear against the raceways and are disposed annularly in alternation with wedge-shaped spacers in the gap. The radius of the contact surfaces of the spacers is larger than the radius of the rolling elements and this leads to the formation of wedge-shaped gaps between the rolling elements and the spacers which is intended to facilitate the formation of a lubricant film at the line of contact between a rolling element and a spacer.
The disadvantage of such spacers is that they surround the rolling elements on a relatively large part of the periphery thereof so that no adequate quantity of lubricant is available to cool the rolling elements and the raceways.
Further, the shape of the spacers leads to increased friction and consequently to a more intensive braking effect because the shearing force of the rolling elements is applied in the region of the inclined contact surface of the spacer and resolved, in keeping with the parallelogram of forces, into a radial force F.sub.R and a peripheral force F.sub.U acting perpendicular thereto. However, the braking force F.sub.B opposed to the peripheral force F.sub.U is a function of the magnitude of the radial force F.sub.R and the coefficient of sliding friction.
Particularly in the case of high peripheral speeds, such spacers have a tendency to bind and are therefore, also because of the lubrication problems encountered, only suitable for rolling bearings with low peripheral speeds.
It is an object of the invention to provide a spacer for a rolling bearing with which less friction occurs and which can be used even with high peripheral speeds.
The invention achieves this object by the fact that one portion of the contact surfaces on each side of a pitch circle of the radial rolling bearing has a convex, a concave or a flat contour and that a radius of curvature of the contact surfaces of the end sections is larger than the radius of curvature of the rolling elements and, in the case of a concave configuration of said portion, the radius of curvature thereof is larger than the radius of curvature of the contact surfaces of the end sections.
This configuration of the spacers assures that the rolling elements and the contact surfaces of the spacers are only in tangential contact with one another so that an osculation between the rolling elements and the spacers is excluded. Due to the absence of osculation between the rolling elements and the spacers, the lubricant has a substantially improved access to the space between the rolling elements and the spacers whereby the cooling of the rolling bearing is also substantially improved. No osculation occurs between the spacers and the rolling elements even when, due to the centrifugal force at a high peripheral speed of the rolling bearing, the spacers are guided on the outer raceway. In this case too, the convex, concave or flat regions of the spacers bear against the rolling elements.
Due to this region of the contact surfaces, a different point of application of the shearing force F.sub.Sch is obtained as compared to known types of spacers. Since the direction of application of the shearing force F.sub.Sch is always perpendicular to the contact surfaces of the spacers, the shearing force F.sub.Sch is identical with the peripheral force F.sub.U, that is to say, the spacers do not have a braking effect in this case because the braking force F.sub.B requires a radial componen

REFERENCES:
patent: 3058789 (1962-10-01), Ham
patent: 3517975 (1970-06-01), Lonngren et al.
patent: 4277117 (1981-07-01), George
patent: 4896974 (1990-01-01), Shimizu
German Search Report No. International PCT/EP93/02817.

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