Technical information on split spherical roller bearings
Features
Spherical roller bearings are double row units comprising solid outer rings with a concave raceway, solid inner rings and barrel rollers with cages. The symmetrical barrel rollers orient themselves freely on the concave outer ring raceway. As a result, shaft flexing and misalignment of the bearing seats are compensated.
In split spherical roller bearings, the inner ring, outer ring and cage with the roller set are split in half. The split bearing rings are held together by screws.
Cost savings
Split spherical roller bearings are principally used where the replacement of unsplit spherical roller bearings would require costly additional work, involving the removal of gears or couplings, the dismounting of drives or the dismantling of shaft power trains. The use of split spherical roller bearings reduces the downtime of machinery and plant.
In new designs too, split spherical roller bearings can give cost savings in many cases since the plant can be simplified and the assembly work required is reduced. Due in particular to the reduced downtime, the mounting of split spherical roller bearings gives a significant reduction in mounting costs.
Application examples
A common application for split spherical roller bearings is on shafts supported at several points and difficult to access mounting locations. Typical areas of application include conveying equipment, materials processing plant, ventilation plant, rolling mills, ships and paper machinery.