Ceramic Bearing with Retainer 

 

Silicon Nitride Bearings

 

Various Silicon Nitrdie Bearings

 

 

Silicon nitride bearings

 

Main Body:
1.  Outer and inner ring: silicon nitride; rolling element: zirconia balls/rollers
2.  Outer and inner ring: zirconia; rolling element: silicon nitride balls/rollers
3.  Outer ring and rolling element: silicon nitride; inner ring: zirconia

Full zirconia bearings are without retainer

Retainer Material:
PTFE, NYLON, PEEK, Stainless Steel or without retainer

Precision:
P0 for full ceramic bearings and P0 ~ P4 for ceramic ball bearings

Major bearing series:
Deep groove ball bearing, Angular contact ball bearing, and Thrust ball bearings

Properties advantage, compared with metal bearing:

1. Higher angular speed:
Ceramic is lighter than steel and can effectively restrain the centrifugal force, therefore increases the turning speed limit.
 
2. Higher precision usage:
Ceramic has better hardness and elastic modulus than steel. Ceramic bearing is therefore more rigid than steel bearing thus can be used in high precision engineering applications and requirements.  

3. Durable:
Lighter ceramic leads to lower centrifugal force, thus extends the life of bearing accuracies. Lower coefficient of friction reduces wear also leads to longer bearing life.

4. High operating temperature:
Ceramic is mechanically stable at elevated temperature.  It can be used on high speed material cutting.

5. Low Temperature Variation:
Ceramic has a lower thermal expansion coefficient. The clearance and the tolerance variation is much lower than steel bearing.  It is more superior than steel bearing in varies operating temperature applications. 
 
6. Physical Stability:
Ceramic has less thermal deformation, thus its physical dimensions is more stable in varies operating temperature.

7. Self Lubrication:
Ceramic never rusts and is self-lubricated. It can be operated without oil or grease.
 
8. Chemically inert to acid, alkali and salt:
Chemical industry is the largest potential application industry of ceramic bearing.

9. Non-magnetic application:
Ceramic bearing is non-magnetic.  It will not attract any metallic debris or particle that may cause electrical shorting.  This is especially critical in the electronic industries.
 
Ceramic ball bearing is remarkably outstanding in the first three properties above. While full ceramic bearing is outstanding in all the properties mentioned above over steel bearings.
Full silicon nitride bearing properties are more superior than full zirconium bearing as it can endure higher temperature and is more resistant to acid, alkali and salt.

Applications:
For harsh service environment, such as chemical, metallurgy, food, electrical, medical industry etc. Silicon Nitride bearings are used to hold the high-speed motor spindle, high-precision machine spindle, dental drilling machine, high-speed wheel head, instrument, hard disk drive, skating, fishing  etc.