The Timken Company

Peter W Lee

Chester F Jatczak

Gary E Kreider

Peter S Orvos

Goverdhan D Lahoti

Martin D Pierce

Ronald L Widner

A double cup for a tapered roller being has a concave intervening surface between the small diameter ends of its tapered raceways. The cup is produced by roll forming a tubular blank at ambient temperature into a ring form having the raceways and the concave intervening surface. The presence of the concave intervening surface leaves only a shallow discontinuity in the exterior surface of the ring form, and that discontinuity is machined away with the removal of only a minimal amount of stock. The cup weighs less than cups with straight intervening surfaces.

Roll-formed bearing race and process for producing the same

A machine component has a wear surface along which excessive friction will develop unless the surface receives adequate lubrication. To provide lubrication for the wear surface in the absence of any other lubricating medium, the component is formed from powdered metal compacted to less than theoretical density so as to contain pores, and the pores hold oil. Even though the component is mechanically machined along its wear surface, the pores are nevertheless open at the wear surface to enable the entrapped oil to exude from the ring and lubricate that surface. During manufacture of the ring, the mechanical machining creates a Bielby layer at the wear surface, that is it smears the metal and closes the pores at that surface, but the Bielby layer is removed by electro-discharge machining This procedure erodes the Bielby layer with electrical arcs so that the pores at the wear surface are again exposed and open.

Method of making a machine component with lubricated wear surface

A powder metal composite made up of first and second powder metal bodies assembled in a mold cavity with the bodies separated by a divider ring and with the bodies being in concentric relationship such that the assembled bodies and divider ring can be simultaneously compacted and subsequently simultaneously sintered to form the desired composite metal article. In practicing the method of forming a composite metal article one of the bodies may be selected from a base powder metal and the other body may be selected from a high performance alloy powder metal, and the divider ring may be selected from a low melting point metal such as copper that will dissolve itself into the powders during sintering and enhance mechanical properties of the sintered compact article. The composital metal article may be used as it is if the density for its intended uses is satisfactory, or such article may be further densified by being subjected to an additional hot forging operation with the article sintered thereafter if deemed necessary.

Powder metal composite and method of its manufacture

A tapered roller bearing has a porous rib ring against which the large ends of its wrought steel tapered rollers bear so that the ring prevents the rollers from being expelled. The rib ring is formed from porous powdered steel that has been compacted to a density of about 70% to 85% of theoretical and then sintered and machined. Thereafter, the machined rib ring is etched to expose the pores at the surface against which the large ends of the rollers bear. Finally, the rib ring is impregnated with oil. Should the bearing lose its normal supply of lubrication, the critical region of contact between the abutment face on the rib ring and the large ends of the rollers will nevertheless be adequately lubricated for a reasonable time by lubricant which escapes from the pores of the rib ring. The cage of the bearing may be piloted by the rib ring and by a ring-like cup insert that is formed in the same manner as the rib ring.

Tapered roller bearing capable of sustained operation without lubricant

A tapered roller bearing has a rib ring against which the large ends of the tapered rollers for the bearing bear to prevent those rollers from being expelled from the annular space between the tapered raceways. The rib ring includes a porous, yet rigid, core and a jacket which covers the exposed surfaces of the core, except along an abutment face at which the large end faces of the rollers contact the rib ring. Here the pores of the core are exposed. The core at one of its other faces has a groove and the jacket has a port that opens into the groove. Pressurized oil is directed through the port and into the groove, from which it flows through the pores of the core and emerges at the abutment surface where it reduces friction between the abutment surface and the roller end faces.

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Canton, OH, United States of America

Peter W Lee