The Schaeffler Group has launched a complete family of ball roller bearings, which offers reduced friction and allows bearing mass and width to be decreased by 20 per cent.

This follows the success of the company's ball roller prototype bearing.

Schaeffler's ball roller is an energy-efficient range of bearings that utilises spherical bearing elements, but with their sides cut off.

The ball roller is also based on new assembly methods developed by Schaeffler.

The result is a range of ball roller elements that offers all the axial load handling capabilities of fully spherical balls, but, more importantly, allows overall bearing width and mass to be decreased by around 20 per cent, as well as reducing friction.

It means that in the same design space, it is now possible to carry greater loads and provide a larger grease reservoir or more space for improved sealing.

In the new design, Schaeffler has removed all areas of a conventional rolling element 'ball' that are not under load.

This means that 15 per cent of the ball's diameter is cut off on both sides.

The result is a flattened ball on both sides, which is 30 per cent narrower than a conventional ball.

This not only saves valuable design space, but means that the 'slim' shape of the ball roller, in combination with new assembly methods, enables the number of rolling elements to be increased.

This, in turn, enables the filling capacity of the bearing to be increased by up to 90 per cent.

Using more rolling elements in the same design space results in higher load ratings and a longer service life, providing opportunities to downsize products and assemblies.

Heinrich Hofmann, development engineer of special projects at Schaeffler, said: 'The idea for the ball roller came from our development engineers, who were testing ball bearings and discovered that the spherical balls tended to roll about a single axis and made no use of those areas adjacent to this axis.' In a typical ball bearing, only 70 per cent of the ball width is utilised, so the outer 15 per cent to the left and right of the ball diameter can be considered redundant.

This discovery led the company to the idea of cutting off this 'redundant' material from the sides of the balls.

The development team realised that cage design would be critical to the new bearing.

Hofmann said: 'Because the balls cannot be allowed to greatly change their rotation axes, cage design was crucial.

'The critical conditions occur during initial rotation.

'Once the bearings are moving under conditions of speed and load, they become self locating, like a bicycle wheel,' he added.

In addition, having moved away from a fully spherical shape, it is possible to give the roller a logarithmic profile, since the rotational axis is always perpendicular to the variable contact angle.

Therefore, the osculation conditions - the 'kiss' between the roller and the bearing groove - do not change.

If the load ratio changes from axial to radial and the contact angle changes as a result, the osculation 'creeps' in an optimum manner with the change in load.

The BXRE207 ball roller bearing contains 14 rolling elements in the same space as Schaeffler's standard 6207 ball bearing (DIN 625).

Here, the filling capacity is increased to 90 per cent; the bearing life is 2.4 times longer.

Schaeffler's single-row BXRE bearing offers a higher load carrying capacity than a standard ball bearing in the same design space.

This is a result of a 50 per cent increase in the number of rolling elements by using assembly methods.

The resulting filling capacity is around 90 per cent, which means that the BXRE bearing can withstand extreme loads.

The bearings are, therefore, suitable for the downsizing of products and assemblies, as they require less radial space with the same shaft diameter and the same load ratings.

Typical application examples are electric motors, washing machines, power tools and industrial gearboxes.

The BXRO range of ball roller bearings comprises double-row bearings with the rolling elements in an 'O' arrangement, enabling the bearings to support both radial and axial forces.

Compared to Schaeffler's Series 32 ball bearings, up to 50 per cent more rolling elements can be fitted in the ball roller.

The advantage of the BXRO over the 33 Series (which has two inner rings) is in the simplified installation of the inner ring on the shaft.

The optimised raceway geometry of the single-piece inner ring results in an increased bearing accuracy.

Applications include automotive manual transmissions and textile machinery.

The BXRT ball roller series is a double-row design with the rows of ball rollers in a tandem arrangement.

The rolling elements can be guided using one or two cages.

The two-cage design enables the optimal adjustment of the two raceways independently of each other to perfectly match the application.

This ensures maximum load support with minimum size and reduced friction.

Compared to tapered roller bearings, friction is reduced by around 30 per cent because of the elimination of rib friction.

This means that energy consumption can be significantly reduced, leading to applications in manual transmissions, differentials, hydraulic motors and pumps.

Schaeffler has also launched a special ball roller bearing for use as a wheel bearing, reducing friction and weight in passenger cars and commercial vehicles.

The four-row, BXR4 wheel bearings offer a higher load carrying capacity and, therefore, enable more compact designs than conventional wheel bearings.

The new bearings are suitable for driven axles.

The reduced friction and weight of the bearing and the wheel carrier contribute to reduced fuel consumption and exhaust emissions.

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