On 09/12/16 22:22, Christopher Tidy wrote:
Thanks for all the useful answers. I'm looking for examples of common products which are currently in production, and where a risk of sudden failure exists if the bearing fails to behave properly. Slow and lightly loaded applications aren't so interesting, as the design isn't critical and the price is going to be the main factor.

Car engines and jet engines are interesting. The last small engine I took apart (400 cc) had rolling element main bearings, whereas a similar older engine (600 cc) had huge plain bearings and hardly any signs of wear. I also saw a compressor with a ball bearing in the big end of the connecting rod recently. This got me thinking. I don't see so many plain bearings in modern products, or at least nothing so visible as the bronze sleeves in my 1960s power hacksaw and 1940s sewing machine. But maybe "see" is the important word.

Can anyone tell me what kinds of bearings are used in specific car engines from well-known manufacturers today? Volkswagen, Ford, Mercedes, etc.? An example or two would be useful

Thanks for the information.

Best wishes,

Chris
Chris,

I would guess that the small engine you took apart with rolling
element bearings was a 2 stroke, that's pretty standard whereas a 4
stroke would be plain bearing. Regarding compressors rolling element
bearings are simple and cheap and save having a pressure oil supply and
can be splash lubricated so may be used where they can be fitted such as
a single cylinder example a neighbour has or my 2 cylinder with 2
bearings on a common pin. A mate used to work for Bendix air compressors
not many years ago and those compressors used plain bearing and the oil
supply was taken off the engine so no need for an oil pump in the
compressor. Another recent compressor I took apart had ball bearings for
the main bearings on the crank and the big end bearings were plain
supplied by a pick tube which dipped into the oil sump. One of the items
my mate mentioned about the Bendix compressors was the conrods were
aluminium and made from an alloy formulated by Rolls Royce IIRC around
WW2 so the material properties suited the structural requirements of a
conrod and acted as a bearing material also as the rod material acted as
the plain bearing.