All About Pillow Block Bearings
Maybe most of us are not very familiar with pillow block bearing which is different from the common types of bearing products. Generally, they are composed of the outer spherical ball bearings with double-seal and the casting pedestal (or pressed steel plate). The inside structure of the pillow block bearings is the same as deep groove ball bearings, however, the outer ring of this type has the outer surface of section balls, it can be self-aligning when fitted with concave of the bearing pedestal.
Pillow block bearings have self-aligning property, and are easy to mount and dismount. They are widely used in various machineries, especially in agricultural machinery, textile machinery, metallurgical machinery, and mining machinery and various conveying devices, etc. With a self-aligning structure, they can compensate for alignment errors or flexing of the shaft. Large garden implements also incorporate pillow-block style bearings in certain circumstances. This type of bearing is used to support and align a shaft between a driven component-such as a fan-and the drive motor.
There are clearance between the inner bore and shaft, you must fixed the inner ring with the shaft by tip wire, eccentric sleeve or clamping sleeve, then the bearing could rotate with the shaft. The pillow block bearings are compact in structure, convenient for assembling and disassembling. They are suitable for simple support.
This kind of bearing also has many series which can be used in different applications. For example, there are various series such as UCF 200 series, UCT 200 series, UCFL 200 series, and UCP 200 series. Different kinds of bearing product have their own characteristics.
According to this, we can see that pillow block bearing can also play a very important role in different industries. Therefore, its proper lubrication becomes very necessary. But it is not easy to grease them except for that you obey to some lubrication rules.
First of all, you should read the equipment manufacturer's instructions to determine the appropriate type of grease recommended for servicing. Besides, you should also determinate the recommended amount of grease.
After that, you may service the bearing while it is operating and at its normal operating temperature. Clean the grease fitting, and place the grease gun hose fitting onto the bearing's grease zerk. Allow the grease gun's hose end fitting to support itself in place while pumping the grease gun handle. Holding the grease gun in place by hand is a dangerous practice as grease can be injected into the skin.
You must stop greasing when the first sign of grease extrusion from the bearing's seals is observed. Then you can remove the grease gun from the fitting and clean it off with a shop rag. Leave a grease coating on the grease zerk to help keep out contamination. You can just do proper lubrication for the pillow block bearings if you follow the above instructions.
by Sunny Ling
Gloss