The Introduction of Ceramic Bearing
When people mention the ceramics, the tableware commonly used at home will come to their mind. However, with the rapid development of the technology, the application of ceramics is not limited in the tableware field. Now the ceramics is widely used in all kinds of industries including the bearing industry.
Especially in recent years, the application of ceramics in bearing field has gained the fruitful achievement under the effort of experts. The ceramic bearing is a good case in point. There are a lot of types for ceramic bearings. For example, zirconia ceramics bearing is characterized by corrosion-proofness, resistance to high temperature and low temperature, anti-magnetic, insulation and so on. Its ring circle and rolling element is made by ZrO2 ceramics, retainer made by PTFE, PEEK, stainless steel or brass. Another one is silicon nitride ceramic bearing, whose circle and rolling element is made by SiN4 ceramics, retainer made by PTFE, PEEK or PI. Compared with the front one, the silicon nitride one is more applicable for higher temperature environment, faster rotate speed or more load. The mixed ceramic ball bearing is another type. Because the ceramic ball has the following features such as low thickness, high hardness, low friction coefficient, hard wearing, self-lubrication and so on, it is very suitable as the rolling element of the bearing which can be used in the very strict conditions. For this type, the inner circle and outer circle adopts the GCr15 or AISI440C as the main material and the ceramic ball adopts ZrO2, Si3N4 or SiC material.
Why is the ceramic bearing so popular? Personally speaking, it has a ceramic canister close relationship with the merits of this bearing. Firstly, because the ceramics is corrosion-proof, the ceramic bearing is quite suitable for the conditions full of corrosive medium. Secondly, owing to the low thickness of the ceramic rolling ball and light weight, when the bearing rotates, the centrifugal effect can be reduced by 40%. Thereby, the operation time is greatly prolonged. Thirdly, the ceramics is not easy to bring about expansion and contraction, so the bearing made by ceramics is applicable for the environment with great changes of temperatures. Last but not least, compared with steel, the elasticity module of the ceramics is much higher. Therefore, it is not easy to deform. To some degree, it is also of great help to raise the working speed and accurateness.
All in all, the ceramic bearing has so many advantages in the application that it is produced by many big companies, such as SKF, NSK, and FAG. With the further study and breakthrough in the technology, it is believed that this bearing must have a bright future.