Needle bearings have thinner and longer roller elements than conventional bearings, making them ideal for low overall height applications. They have good load carrying capacities and are available in various designs, including caged or fully completed bearings and sealed or open bearings. Needle bearings are used in automotive engines and other high-stress precision applications. They have a lower profile than conventional bearings, allowing machine designers to save space and weight. Various needle bearing configurations are available, including caged and full complement bearings, and some designs include an additional set of ball bearings for better angular load bearing.
A needle bearing is a type of bearing that has longer and thinner roller elements than conventional roller bearing elements. Thanks to the significantly smaller roller diameters, the needle roller bearing is ideal for applications where low overall heights are required. Despite the small diameters of the rollers, needle bearings have good load carrying capacities and are often used in large numbers in automotive engines and other high-stress precision applications. Needle bearings are available in a variety of designs, including caged or fully completed bearings and sealed or open bearings. Angular contact varieties of this bearing are also available which combine needle roller and ball bearing elements.
Roller bearings use cylindrical roller assemblies or elements instead of the more traditional balls. Needle roller bearings follow the basic design principles of a normal roller bearing with an inner and outer raceway that contain and orient a series of roller elements between them. The inner race is pushed onto the machine shaft and the outer race is held captive in an end cap or outer frame. The rollers therefore offer low friction support for the shaft as it rotates. The main difference between conventional roller bearings and needle bearings is the diameter of the roller.
The needle bearing has roller elements that are significantly smaller in diameter than a normal needle element. This means that a needle roller bearing has a much lower profile than a conventional type. This feature allows the needle roller bearing to be used in applications where small tolerances of the inner and outer surface are required. The use of needle bearings allows machine designers to keep overall design size down, saving space and weight in applications such as automobile engines. The low height of needle roller bearings does not negatively impact their performance; have good load-bearing qualities.
There are many different needle bearing configurations available to suit a wide range of applications. These include sealed or open bearings and examples that include flanged outer raceways for increased lateral stability. Caged needle bearings feature steel or brass “cages” that hold a small number of rollers in a constant positional orientation which results in reduced friction. Full complement bearings are also available which have the race area completely filled with rollers. This increases the friction coefficient of the bearing, but also increases its stability and load carrying capacity.
Some needle bearing designs include an additional set of ball bearings that ride outside the roller set and allow for better angular load bearing. Self-aligning needle roller bearings have two outer raceways with cupped inner surfaces which give this variant a certain degree of axial misalignment absorption. Needle thrust bearings are also quite common and have sets of rollers arranged radially in a fan-like formation.
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