Needle Roller Bearings

Features:
Needle roller bearings use very long and thin cylinders. Often the ends of the rollers taper to points, and these are used to keep the rollers captive, or they may be hemispherical and not captive but held by the shaft itself or a similar arrangement. Since the rollers are thin, the outside diameter of the bearing is only slightly larger than the hole in the middle. However, the small-diameter rollers must bend sharply where they contact the races, and thus the bearing fatigues relatively quickly.

Needle roller bearings include bearings whose rollers slightly exceed the size range of needle rollers as stipulated by ISO. Needle roller bearings include drawn cup and solid radial bearings, as well as application-specific cam followers, and roller followers. Thrust bearings include thrust needle bearings.

Needle roller bearings feature a smaller cross-section, higher load-carrying capacity, greater rigidity, and lower inertia forces that facilitate size and weight reductions in machinery. They’re designed to withstand oscillation, perform under severe conditions, and interchange with sliding bearings.