Bearing history

     China is the world’s early invention of rolling bearings, one of the countries in China’s ancient books, on the structure of axle bearing has long been recorded. From the archaeological relics and materials, China’s oldest bearing with modern rolling bearing prototype structure, appeared in 221 -207 BC (Qin dynasty) in today’s Shanxi Yongji County Xue Jia Ya Village. After the founding ceremony of the People’s Republic of China, especially since the 1970s, the bearing industry has entered a new period of high-quality and rapid development under the strong impetus of reform and opening-up.

     At the end of the 17th century, the British C. Walow designs and manufactures ball bearings for trial use on mail carriers and British P. Wurth patented the ball bearing. In Germany at the end of the 18th century, H. R. Hertz published a paper on contact stress in ball bearings. Building on Hertz’s achievements, the German R. Streicher, Swedish A. Selim Palmgren et al have carried out a number of experiments that have contributed to the development of design theory and fatigue life calculations for rolling bearings. Later, the Russian N. Karen. Petrovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina used Newton's law of viscosity to calculate bearing friction.

     British O. Reno carried out a mathematical analysis of Thors's findings, derived the Reno equation, and laid the foundation for the theory of hydrodynamic lubrication. Early forms of linear motion bearings consisted of a row of wooden rods placed under a pry board. The technology may date back to the days when Great Pyramid of Giza were built, though there is no clear evidence of this. Modern linear motion bearings use the same principle of operation, except that sometimes balls are used instead of rollers. The earliest sliding and rolling bearings were made of wood. Ceramics, sapphires or glass are also used, and steel, copper, other metals, and plastics (such as nylon, bakelite, Teflon, and UHMWPE) are commonly used.

    From heavy-duty axles and machine-tool spindles to precision clock parts, rotating bearings are needed on many occasions. The simplest rotating bearing is the sleeve bearing, which is simply a sleeve sandwiched between the wheel and the axle. This design was then replaced by rolling bearings, which replaced the bushings with many cylindrical rollers, each of which acted like a separate wheel. The first practical rolling bearings with cages were invented by watchmaker John Harrison in the 1760 to make the H3 timepiece.

    Early examples of ball bearings have been found on an ancient Roman ship in Lake Nami, Italy. This wooden ball bearing is used to support a rotating table top. The ship was built in 40 BC. Leonardo da Vinci, Tuscany is said to have described a ball bearing around 1500. Among the various imperfections of ball bearings, one of the most important is that the balls collide, causing extra friction. But this can be prevented by placing balls in small cages.

    In the 17th century, Galileo first described ball bearings as “Fixed balls,” or “Cage balls.”. But for a long time afterwards, the installation of bearings on the machine was not realized. The first patent for a ball groove was obtained by Carmarthen's Philip of Swabia Worne in the 1794.

    The 1883, Friedrich Fischer, advocated the use of suitable production machines to grind steel balls of the same size and roundness. This laid the foundation for the creation of an independent bearing industry. The acronym combination“Fischers Automatische Gu & szlig; stahlkugelfabrik” or“Fischer Aktien-gesellschaft” later became a trademark and was registered on July 29,1905.

    In 1962, the FAG trademark was amended and remains in use today, becoming an integral part of the company in 1979.

    In 1895, Henry Timken designed the first tapered roller bearing, which was patented three years later and founded the Timken Company.

    In 1907 Sven Winqvist of the SKF bearing factory designed the first modern self-aligning ball bearing.