A Ball Bearing is a metal roller ball that is used to maintain the separation distance between the bearing races. Ball bearings are one of the types of rolling element bearings. They are helpful in reducing the friction between the rotating parts of a machine and support axial and radial loads acting on the rotating part.
Beningson explains Ball Bearing
The materials used for manufacturing ball bearings include carbon stainless steel, chrome steel and ceramic such as silicon nitride. There are three types of ball bearing devices used and all the three designs have their trade off
- Angular contact – Such types of ball bearing designs make use of axially asymmetric races. Here the axial load is transferred in a straight line through bearing whereas radial load takes an oblique path that tends to want to separate the races axially. The larger the contact angle, the higher the axial load and the lower the radial load.
- Axial design – Such type of ball bearing uses side by side races. Here the axial load is transmitted directly through the bearing, while a radial load is poorly supported and tends to separate the races, so that a larger radial load is likely to damage the bearing.
- Deep Groove design – In such type of ball bearing, the race dimensions are close to the dimensions of the balls that run in it thus they support higher loads.