Bearings

By On May 31, 2009 Under Cell Phone

Friction is a kind of force which opposes the movement of a surface in sliding or rolling motion over another surface with which it is in contact.

Flexure bearings
Bearings are categorized according to how they operate and the motions that they allow. The two common motions are linear and rotary. Bearings which allow linear motions are called linear bearings. These bearings allow motion in a straight line. An example of linear motion is the pulling and pushing of a drawer. Rotary motions, on the other hand, involve one direction rotation and oscillation, wherein the motion goes only through a part of a cycle, such as in the case of a wheel. Rotary bearings, therefore, allow motions which are concentrated on a center, like a wheel on a shaft.

Thrust bearings
There are several types of thrust bearings which we can look at but before we go further let us look at what a thrust bearing actually is. A thrust bearing by definition is a type of rotary bearing where they allow the rotation of two parts, but the slight difference with a thrust bearing is that they are designed to do this while supporting a very high axial load. These types of bearings are manufactured for many items from small household appliances where they are the size of a coin to massive industrial generators where they are several feet in diameter.

Linear bearings
Bearings are extremely important applications in so many appliances and machinery we use today on a daily basis for example every time you use your car, or a kitchen appliance, or take a trip on a boat think about the bearings and how important they are to the speed and movement.

It is a word also used when navigating. The meaning of the word changes slightly depending on which area of navigation you are talking about. For example in marine navigation a bearing is to describe the direction from one object in correlation to another object, and in land navigation a bearing is the angle between two connecting points and a north-south line. For example the house can be at a bearing of 38 degrees from the car park.