Determination of bearing size

The type and design of bearing to be used for a given application has to be chosen with respect to the type of load acting upon the bearing, the operating temperature which can be expected and the requirements regarding lubrication and mainten-ance. The following points serve as a guide for initial consideration for designing a bearing and estimating its service life.

The load capacity and wear charac-teristics of a GLYCODUR^® bearing depend on the individual operating conditions, so all subsequent information and calculations are approximate values only. To deter-mine the required size of a bearing we recommend starting with the bearing load capacity, the prevailing loads, the service life requirements and with the operational safety.

The service life of a GLYCODUR bearing is indicated by the number of angular movements/revolutions or as operating hours. When operating in the mixed or dry friction range, the service life is determined by the increase of the bearing clearance and/or on the increasing friction caused by progressive wear of the sliding surfaces, plastic deformation of the sliding material or fatigue in the sliding surface.

Depending on the application and the sliding material, the permissible wear or the permissible increase in friction will be different.

This means that under the same operating conditions the service life, which can be obtained in practice, will be different. This is due to the fact that depending on the applica-tion, the bearing has to meet different demands. It has also been proven that the service life, which will be obtained in practice under identical operating conditions, varies. This applies to field as well as laboratory tests. The effective or actual service life is largely determined by the actual operating conditions. Apart from magnitude and type of load, several other factors such as contamination, corrosion, high frequency load and movement cycles, shocks, etc. have to be considered. Some of these factors may only be evaluated with extreme difficulty.

The nominal service life is an approx-imate value only, which will be achieved or exceeded by the majority of bearings.