BEARING SUPPLIERS

Roller bearings like the one illustrated below are used in applications like conveyer belt rollers, where they must hold heavy radial loads. In these bearings, the roller is a cylinder, so the contact between the inner and outer race is not a point but a line. This spreads the load out over a larger area, allowing the bearing to handle much greater loads than a ball bearing. However, this type of bearing is not designed to handle much thrust loading.

A variation of this type of bearing, called a needle bearing, uses cylinders with a very small diameter. This allows the bearing to fit into tight places.

Ball thrust bearings like the one shown below are mostly used for low-speed applications and cannot handle much radial load. Barstools and Lazy Susan turntables use this type of bearing.

Roller thrust bearings like the one illustrated below can support large thrust loads. They are often found in gearsets like car transmissions between gears, and between the housing and the rotating shafts. The helical gears used in most transmissions have angled teeth -- this causes a thrust load that must be supported by a bearing.

Tapered roller bearings can support large radial and large thrust loads.

Tapered roller bearings are used in car hubs, where they are usually mounted in pairs facing opposite directions so that they can handle thrust in both directions.