Sealed four-row taper roller

bearings cut maintenance time

Contents
Made by SKF stands for excellence. It symbolises
our consistent endeavour to achieve total quality in
everything we do. For those who use our products,
Made by SKF implies three main benefits.
Reliability thanks to modern, efficient products,
based on our worldwide application know-how, optimised materials, forward-looking designs and the most
advanced production techniques.

Harsh conditions for work roll bearings . . . . . . . . . . 3

Sealed bearings change lubrication needs
and save costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Evolution of sealed four-row taper roller bearings
Less grease consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Doubled service life with oil spot lubrication . . . . .
Simple conversion of bearing arrangements . . . .

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The SKF Group a worldwide corporation . . . . . . . . 8

Cost effectiveness resulting from the favourable
ratio between our product quality plus service facilities,
and the purchase price of the product.
Market lead which you can achieve by taking
advantage of our products and services. Increased
operating time and reduced down-time, as well as
improved output and product quality are the key to
a successful partnership.

Extended service intervals with sealed bearings

Harsh conditions for work roll

bearings
Dust, dirt, heat, water,
scale etc. cause
rolling mill operators
to spend a considerable
amount of money on
machine care programmes, especially
on frequent bearing replacement and lubrication. Highly advanced
SKF four-row taper
roller bearings help to
enhance product quality and quantity while
leaving the mills still
working.

Hot rolling mill train

Heavy loads, radial and axial, have to

be accommodated by work roll bearings. Four-row taper roller bearings
can cope with different load directions
simultaneously. As their use allows
simple and economic bearing arrangements, four-row taper roller bearings
are the choice in almost all hot sheet
rolling mills and many cold rolling mills
worldwide.
However, these bearings have to
operate under unfavourable conditions, particularly in hot rolling mills,
where there are large amounts of
water, rolling emulsion and solid contaminants, such as scale. External
chock seals often become damaged
and fail due to frequent roll changes
and the extreme operating conditions.
The penetration of water and solid
contaminants has a drastic effect on
bearing service life.

Calculable bearing service life

considering contamination
Grease with a water content of up to
45 % has already been found in work
roll bearings, which far exceeds the
acceptable level for satisfactory bearing service life. The correlation between contamination with solids and
bearing service life can be evaluated
using the SKF Life Theory.

Extended service intervals with sealed bearings

Sealed bearings change

lubrication needs and save costs
Fig

Fig

Fig 1
Different development
stages of sealed
work roll bearings:
a) first generation
b) second generation
c) third generation
Fig 2
Arrangement example
of a four-row taper
roller bearing of the
third generation

Evolution of sealed
four-row taper roller
bearings
To prevent water and contaminant
particles from reaching the bearings
on work rolls, SKF developed four-row
taper roller bearings with integral
seals on both sides.
In order to ensure correct performance the seal is integral with the outboard single outer ring so that the
centrelines of the seal lip and its counterface coincide even under load.
A cheaper solution is to insert the seal
in a separate carrier ring, but with this
arrangement the seal can open eccentrically under load, allowing water
to penetrate.
Since SKF sold the first sealed
four-row taper roller bearing there
have already been two major improvements to seals and design ( fig 1 ).

First generation
The integral lip type seal was made of
nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR). The
permissible sliding speed at the seal
lip was about 12 m/s max. SKF took
special care with the design of the
seal arrangement between the cones:
there is no weakening of the inner
rings by the two radially inserted
O-rings.

Second generation
The integral lip-type seal is made
of fluoro-rubber vulcanised on to a
sheet steel support which extends
round the cage of the outboard roller
set. The permissible sliding speed at
the lip is increased to 35 m/s max.
The load carrying capacity is virtually
the same as of an open (unsealed)
bearing up to 98 %.
Third generation
In contrast to the second generation
the bearings are made up of four
separate cups, no intermediate rings
and a modified seal between the
cones. The advantages of this sophisticated version without intermediate
rings between cups and cones are:

improved load distribution over the

four roller rows which results in

longer service life;
fewer bearing parts, which minimises the danger of mixing up the
parts on mounting;
simplified and faster mounting
reduced width tolerance of cones:
0,25 mm. This ensures very
simple axial clamping on the roll
neck;
the external dimensions are the
same as those of conventional open
four-row taper roller bearings.

Four-row taper roller bearings with a

cylindrical bore have a loose fit on the
roll neck. In order to reduce the resulting wear, the cones are not clamped,
but mounted with an axial clearance
of 0,4 to 1,3 mm. With four-row taper
roller bearings of the third generation,
this clearance is no longer adjusted
with a nut but adjusts itself automatically on mounting, when the adjacent
parts have the correct tolerances
( fig 2 ).

SKF four-row taper

roller bearings unique
design features
In addition to the advantages described the SKF four-row taper roller
bearings, sealed as well as open
versions, are characterised by the
same unique design features as all
other SKF taper roller bearings.
The form of the sliding contact surfaces of the guide flange of the inner
ring and of the roller ends has considerably enhanced lubricant supply
to, and lubricant film formation in, the
roller end/flange contacts. The rolling
contact geometry in the bearings has
also been considerably improved by
the introduction of the so-called logarithmic profile resulting in optimised
stress distribution over the contact.
The special surfaces also favour lubricant film formation and the correct
movement of the rollers.
All these improvements have appreciably enhanced the performance of
SKF taper roller bearings.

Less grease
consumption

Correct bearing
lubrication with
SKF grease
The value and importance of using the
right bearing grease for the right application should not be underestimated. SKF offers 13 types of grease for
different applications matching the
individual bearing demands. All greases
are available in packages of various
sizes, up to 180 kg drums.
By selecting the correct SKF
greases, maximum bearing life is assured which translates to increased
uptime and lower operating costs.
Extensive research, testing and
field experience are behind the formulation of all SKF greases these are
available to the same high standard
world-wide. Correct grease application
is a critical part of maintaining troublefree operation of your machinery.
Incorrect lubrication accounts for up
to 50 % of bearing failures. Multipurpose greases are inadequate for
specialised bearing needs and can
cause problems rather than be beneficial. Bearing applications have wide
variations of load, speed, temperature
and environment, and correct lubrication calls for matching the grease
precisely to the bearing application.

Normally, sealed four-row taper roller

bearings are filled with high quality
bearing grease on mounting e.g.
SKF LGMB2 with a base oil viscosity
of 780 mm2/s and then run without
relubrication to the next inspection
after about 1 000 to 1 400 operating
hours. Considering roll changes,
this corresponds to a maintenance
interval of about one year. This
method has proved successful in
many mills for a number of years.
The sealed bearings attain not
only longer lives, but with their use it
is also possible to make considerable
savings of grease up to 90 % as
compared with an open arrangement.
Regarding the subsequent cost
savings, the sealed four-row taper
roller bearings, including spare
bearings for the whole mill, usually
pay off within one year.

Doubled service life

with oil spot lubrication
Sealed four-row taper roller bearings
with relubrication feature can be
combined with oil spot lubrication.
Experience with cold rolling mills
has shown that oil spot lubrication in
combination with an oil bath doubles
the service life of sealed bearings
compared with unsealed bearings with
grease lubrication ( Table 1 ).
With oil spot lubrication, the small
oil quantity required for bearing lubrication can be accurately metered.
Thus this system is perfectly suitable
for high peripheral speeds, as no
additional heat is generated due to
overlubrication.

Four-row taper roller bearings

Service life

Unsealed, continuous grease lubrication

100 %

Sealed, grease lubrication

150 %

Sealed, oil spot lubrication

200 %

The lubricant is supplied between

the roller rows through two annular
grooves in the cups or via grooves in
the cup side faces. The very small
metered quantities of oil are fed to the
bearing carried in a stream of compressed air. The bearing is thus lubricated and cooled by the compressed
air flowing through it, which simultaneously produces a sealing effect to
exclude water, dust and other contaminants from the bearing.

Table

Service life of
roller bearings
with different lubrication methods

Fig

Sufficiently large
drainage holes
must be provided
in the covers in
the lower parts of
the chocks.

Simple conversion of
bearing arrangements
The conversion from open SKF
four-row taper roller bearings to a
sealed SKF version can be realised
without any difficulty, as the outside
dimensions of the bearings are
identical.
To achieve optimum results,
sufficiently large drainage holes and
grooves should be provided in the
lower part of the chock to allow any
water to drain off so that it is not retained at the bearing seal ( fig 3 ).
Due to the overpressure, drainage
holes are not necessary in combination with oil spot lubrication. The air
escapes via the chock seals and prevents the ingress of dirt and water.

The SKF Group

a worldwide corporation

SKF is an international industrial Group

operating in some 130
countries and is world
leader in bearings.
The company was
founded in 1907 following the
invention of the self-aligning
ball bearing by Sven Wingquist
and, after only a few years,
SKF began to expand all over
the world.
Today, SKF has some 43 000
employees and around 80 manufacturing facilities spread throughout the
world. An international sales network
includes a large number of sales companies and some 20 000 distributors
and retailers. Worldwide availability of
SKF products is supported by a comprehensive technical advisory service.
The key to success has been a
consistent emphasis on maintaining
the highest quality of its products and
services. Continuous investment in
research and development has also
played a vital role, resulting in many

examples of epoch-making innovations.

The business of the Group consists
of bearings, seals, special steel and a
comprehensive range of other hightech industrial components. The experience gained in these various fields

provides SKF with the essential knowledge and expertise required in order
to provide the customers with the most
advanced engineering products and
efficient service.

Copyright SKF 1998

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been taken to ensure the accuracy of

the information contained in this publication but no liability can be accepted

for any loss or damage whether direct,
indirect or consequential arising out of
the use of the information contained
herein.

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