spherical bearings
"Spherical bearings" come in many different types to accommodate a wide variety of applications. What all of them have in common is the ability to accommodate misalignment from mounting or shaft deflection.
Spherical Ball Bearings
More commonly known as Self-Aligning Double Row Ball Bearings, spherical ball bearings are designed to work in applications where severe misalignment exists whether from mounting or shaft deflection. The concave raceway of the outer ring in combination with two rows of balls operates over a wide range of contact angles. Furthermore it aligns itself correctly with the shaft and assembly without causing undue stress on the rest of the bearing assembly. Noteworthy is that the self-aligning ball bearing has the lowest friction of all rolling bearings, which enables it to run cooler even at high speeds. Furthermore, the design allows for easy mounting and dismounting.
Spherical Roller Bearings
Spherical Roller Bearings are designed to work in applications where severe misalignment exists whether from mounting or shaft deflection and with relatively heavy radial loads and some axial loads in either direction. They are also extremely resistant to shock loads and their self-aligning feature allows full capacity loading despite shaft deflection. They are very similar in purpose to Self-Aligning Double Row Ball Bearings, except the Spherical Roller Bearings are designed to be more robust by carry heavier loads but at lower maximum speeds. These bearings have barrel-shaped rollers between the inner ring, which has two raceways, and the outer ring which has one spherical raceway. They are self-aligning because the center of curvature of the outer ring raceway surface coincides with the bearing axis
Spherical Plain Bearings
Spherical Plain Bearings are manufactured in a wide variety of materials and are designed to offer bearing solutions in almost any operating environment. AST Bearings offers a complete line of Spherical Plain Bearings available in inch and metric. These High-Quality Spherical Plain Bearings are suitable for heavy-duty, off-highway vehicles, agricultural equipment, construction and mining and logging equipment, packaging and textile equipment, and robotics. The plain bearings come in standard industrial bore sizes from 0.5" to 12" inches, as well as metric sizes from as small as 4 to 300 mm. Custom sizes can also be ordered.
Spherical Rod End Bearings
Rod ends consist of an eye-shaped head with integral shank forming a housing and a standard spherical plain bearing, or a spherical plain bearing inner ring, or a spherical plain bearing inner ring and a sliding layer between the bore of the head and the inner ring. As a rule, rod ends are available with left or right-hand female or male threads. Rod ends from AST have the sliding contact surface combinations steel-on-steel, steel-on-bronze, steel-on-PTFE composite material, and steel-on-PTFE fabric
