Do You Know about One-way Bearings?

We are certainly familiar with bearings, but we usually see bearings that can rotate in both directions, while many people may not know about one-way bearings.

The one-way bearing can also be called the needle roller clutch. It can rotate freely in one direction and lock up in the other direction. One-way bearings are widely used in textile machinery, transport machinery, and other aspects. Our common money counter also uses one-way bearings. What kind of structure is the one-way bearing? What is its principle?

Structure of one-way bearing

No matter what the structure of one-way bearing, its principle is the principle of clamping. In terms of structure, one is slope and roller type. Here, the outer ring of the bearing is the same as the ordinary bearing, which is a cylindrical outer ring. However, its inner circle structure is special. Its inner circle is a circle with a slope. In addition, it is composed of rollers that are always in contact with the inner and outer rings and springs that are in contact with the rollers. The working surface of the roller is a slope. When the bearing rotates along the slope, the roller is in a downhill state. The downhill space is large, and the roller will not be affected. When the roller rotates in the reverse direction, it is uphill. The uphill is narrow, the roller is stuck, and the bearing is locked.

Another structure of one-way bearing is a wedge-type structure. A group of cam wedges will be set between the inner ring and outer ring of this type of bearing. The cam has two diameters of different sizes. The long diameter is larger than the distance between the inner race and the outer race, while the short diameter is smaller than the distance between the bearing inner race and the outer race. Between the wedges, a cylindrical winding spring is a connected end to end to form a ring spring, which is set on the fulcrum of the wedges. The wedges can be reset by the action of the spring.

Application of one-way bearing

The invention of a one-way bearing solves many problems of mechanism that need to prevent reverse rotation. It has played a great role in many household appliances, such as washing machines. It can effectively prevent materials from falling back in some conveying machinery, such as material transportation. Therefore, the standardized structure makes many machines no longer need to design special anti-reverse structures separately, saving a lot of manpower and material resources, so the development prospect of one-way bearings is very broad.