Bearing Historical Development

Published:

2023-09-08

Early forms of linear motion bearings involved a row of wooden rods placed under a row of skids. Modern linear motion bearings use the same principle of operation, except that sometimes balls are used instead of rollers. The simplest type of rotary bearing was the bushing bearing, which was simply a bushing sandwiched between the wheel and the axle. This design was then replaced by the rolling bearing, which is a bearing that replaces the original bushing with a number of cylindrical rollers, each of which acts like a separate wheel.
An early example of a ball bearing was found on an ancient Roman ship constructed in 40 B.C. found in Lake Nemi, Italy: a wooden ball bearing was used to support a rotating tabletop. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have described a ball bearing around 1500. Among the various unsophisticated elements of ball bearings is the fact that the balls can collide with each other, causing additional friction. This can be prevented by placing the balls in a small cage, and Galileo's earliest description of the "caged ball" ball bearing was given in the 17th century. At the end of the 17th century, C. Valor of England designed and manufactured ball bearings, which were mounted on mail carriages and tried out, and P. Worth of England patented the ball bearing. The first practical rolling bearing with a cage was invented by watchmaker John Harrison in 1760 for the H3 chronograph. At the end of the 18th century, H.R. Hertz of Germany published a paper on contact stresses in ball bearings. On the basis of Hertz's achievement, R. Streibeck of Germany, A. Palmgren of Sweden and others carried out a large number of tests and contributed to the development of design theory and fatigue life calculation of rolling bearings. Subsequently, N.P. Petrov of Russia applied Newton's law of viscosity to calculate bearing friction. The first patent on ball grooves was granted to Philip Vaughan of Carmarthen in 1794.
In 1883, Friedrich Fischer laid the foundations of the bearing industry with his proposition of using suitable production machines to grind steel balls of the same size and exact roundness. O. Reynolds of England conducted a mathematical analysis of Thor's discovery and derived the Reynolds equation, which henceforth laid the foundation for the theory of fluid dynamic pressure lubrication.
Industry Overview
According to the national bureau of statistics data, in 2011 China bearing manufacturing industry scale (annual sales revenue of more than 20 million yuan) a total of 1,416 enterprises, the annual industrial output value of 193.211 billion yuan, an increase of 27.59%; sales revenue of 191.097 billion yuan, an increase of 30.30%; total profit of 12.523 billion yuan, an increase of 26.54% over the previous year. 26.54%. It is expected that by 2015, China's bearing production is expected to exceed 28 billion sets, the main business income is expected to reach 210 billion yuan, becoming the world's largest bearing production and sales base.
Currently China's bearing industry is mainly facing three major outstanding issues: low industry production concentration, low R & D and innovation capacity, low level of manufacturing technology.
First, the industry's low production concentration. In the world bearing about 30 billion U.S. dollars in sales, the world's top 8 multinational companies accounted for 75% to 80%. Germany's two major companies accounted for 90% of its national total, Japan 5 accounted for 90% of its national total, the United States 1 accounted for 56% of its national total. China's 10 largest bearing companies, such as Waxaxial, sales accounted for only 24.7% of the industry, the top 30 production concentration is only 37.4%.
Second, the low capacity of research and development and innovation. Industry-wide basic theoretical research is weak, participation in the development of international standards is weak, less original technology, less patented products.
Currently our design and manufacturing technology is basically imitation, low product development capacity, as shown in: although the matching rate of the domestic host to reach 80%, but high-speed railroad buses, medium and high-grade cars, computers, air conditioners, high-level rolling mills and other important host of supporting and maintenance bearings, basically rely on imports.
Third, the low level of manufacturing technology. China's bearing industry manufacturing process and technology and equipment technology development is slow, low rate of CNC machining, grinding and processing automation level is low, the country has only 200 automatic production lines. Bearing life and reliability of advanced heat treatment processes and equipment, such as controlled atmosphere protection heating, double refinement, bainite quenching, etc. Coverage is low, many of the technical challenges failed to make a breakthrough. Bearing steel research and development of new steel grades, steel quality improvement, lubrication, cooling, cleaning and abrasives and other related technology research and development, is not yet able to adapt to the level of bearing products and quality improvement requirements. As a result, the process capacity index is low, poor consistency, product processing size dispersion, product quality is not stable and affect the bearing precision, performance, life and reliability.

Key words:

Shandong Guolian Industry Group

Bearing industry overview

Shandong Guolian Industry Group

Bearing industry overview