Synthetic Resin Retainer for Large Thrust Ball Bearings with Dry- and Wet-lubricant Management Systems

Abstract

A thrust ball bearing retainer a large size of bearings with the bearing raceways being modified using a surface enhancement process such as hard anodizing coating, which provides low friction coefficient and initial wear rate. The retainer material is selected to be molded, synthetic resin, self-lubricated material reinforced with carbon fiber, molybdenum disulfide, and PTPE. This lubrication system eliminates the thermal induced bearing torque effect due to viscosity. The retainer contains multiply segments with an inner race guided configuration, an alternative ball pocket cross section design and a ball pocket slotted configuration (1) to reduce the thermal induced effects due to coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch between the raceway and the retainer material (2) to enhance the producibility of the retainer due to out-of-round, out-of-flatness and torsional wrap, and (3) to reduce the manufacturing cost. The pocket design with an oval cross section instead of a circular cross section also reduces the localized thermal induced effect which would otherwise result in a pinching condition between the ball and the retainer. The alternative slotted retainer pocket design is used to increase the compliance between ball/pocket interfaces, which helps to reduce the dynamic induced effects. The ends of the retainer segments are designed to reduce the interactive transferring, circumferential force between two adjacent segments.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.