Bearings are a crucial art of any machine or equipment. They can be found in small home appliances to large factory equipment. There are plenty of kinds of bearings available in the market made out of different kinds of materials and made to meet different kinds of purposes. It is important that you know what each type of bearing can do and how they will perform under different conditions to ensure that you get the most out of it. Understanding how they work will also give you a better idea as to how you should maintain them and how reliant they are on lubricants. Since there are many types of bearings that offer almost similar functions, it is very easy for anyone to get caught up and end up being confused.

For starters however, there are three most common types of bearings that you should familiarise yourself with: the needle bearings, the ball bearings and the roller bearings. This article will try to explain to you, in the simplest way possible, how these types of bearings work and when they should be used.

Needle bearings

Needle bearings are the type of bearings that are made up of tiny little roller. This essentially makes it a part of the roller bearing sub-category. These tiny rollers that made up a needle bearing are known as needles. These needles help the bearing to move properly and smoothly. Since the needles are minute in size, the amount of friction is significantly reduced from how it is when using massively sized rollers for the bearings.

Ball bearings

This is probably the type of bearing that everyone has seen or heard about. The ball bearing uses balls to facilitate its rotation and to make its mobility easier. The balls are encaged, to keep them from touching each other and creating friction. These types of bearings can be used for many types of machinery and equipment, particularly those which requires axial and radial loads support. Ball bearings are also the preferred type of bearing to use for machinery and equipment that generate high temperatures. The ball provides extension for the metal to expand, in case the material use is one of those types of metal that expands when exposed to high temperatures.

Roller bearings

Roller bearings are the preferred type of bearings for functions that need to support massive loads. They are chosen, over ball bearings as the rotating component because they can significantly hold more load than ball bearings. Roller bearings are also capable of supporting axial loads even better than ball bearings. If you are thinking of which one to use between roller and ball bearing, you have to keep in mind the type of load that it needs to support. Roller bearings have wide surface areas which means that they are more susceptible to corroding elements and damaged caused by too much friction on the areas. This is where needle rollers comes in.