Hackaday: They lie at the heart of every fidget spinner and in every motor that runs our lives, from the steppers in a 3D printer to the hundreds in every car engine. They can be as simple as a lubricated bushing or as complicated as the roller bearing in a car axle. Bearings are at work every day for us, directing forces and reducing friction, and understanding them is important to getting stuff done with rotating mechanisms.
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I will admit that I did not know what ball bearings were for an embarrassing amount of time. I had had old comics in which characters slipped on spilled boxes of ball bearings, but when I had figured out that they were just slipping in a comical way, my brain would automatically substitute in "banana peel" for "ball bearing." It was not until years later that I saw a ball bearing be referred to as a ball bearing that I pieced that puzzle together. That being said, I love the kind of physics that goes into the design of all kinds of bearings. Those questions of pressure and friction were my favorite to solve in high school. If I hadn't found theatre, I might have gone into mechanical engineering or materials science. I love dealing with the fundamental properties of materials, like when the article mentioned the fundamental incompressibility of fluids. I love magnetism. That magnetic field forces are stronger than gravitational forces by more than a few orders of magnitude constantly baffles and excites me. There are so many possibilities to explore when you even start to consider magnetism.
Yessss. I opened this article because we are learning about bearings in a few weeks in Machine Design so I figured it might be relevant and then I saw it has a How It’s Made video. I love How It’s Made: automatically makes any article so much better. The most interesting part of this video I think is how the ball bearing itself is made. I thought they just shaped it from maybe a square of steel, but actually it’s from a wire that is squished into a lumpy round shape that then goes through sets of grinders that rounds it out. I was shocked that it takes a couple of days to get a ball bearing from a wire to the usable piece. I also was intrigued by the fact that the bearing goes under so many tests progressively throughout the process and then right at the end it can be tossed out because the weight wasn’t precisely right. I wonder how many they loose to that final inspection.
I love bearings. They are such unique creations that can be used in a variety of ways and made in so many more. I usually think of cars when I hear ball bearing or the like because they are used for an important part in every car. The are used in the axle and without those guys; your wheels won’t really do their job. They are also annoying to replace when they wear out too, but still a fun job. One thing I didn’t know about bearing was how they were made. This article had a video on it and its just fascinating. They can come in all sorts of sizes and have quite the process of being made. Circles and balls are not easy things to make and let alone a perfect circle and perfectly shaped balls. The process has to be very precise because if they mess up anywhere; they whole thing it worthless. Although they are used in a lot of different things, I know of them from cars so I am excited to learn more about them and expand my knowledge from reading articles like these.
I was just excited to read a little about bearings because it is something that will come up in machine design pretty soon. But then I saw there was a linked how its made video and I knew I made a good decision clicking this article. Bearings also kind of fit on my list of everyday things no one appreciates, except they are a little more complex and appreciated than stairs and bolts. I like the how it's made clip mostly because it is one of the few on YouTube that I haven't seen yet. The rest of the article is really interesting as well. It explains about different types of bearings that I am sure we will discuss in more depth a little down the road in machine design. I did think it was kind of funny that they listed a bunch of complex bearings then ended it with a plain bearing. Not haha funny, but comical perhaps. I also just read Monica's comment and realized we said the exact same thing in our opening sentences. Now that is haha funny.
I was interested to know what this article what going to about bearing mostly because we discussed them briefly last semester in Physics of Stage Mechanics and also this semester with Machine Design. It is honestly kinda cool how something that on its surface can be so simple yet complex at the same time. While it was pretty damn cool to go into how ball bearings are made and how bearings are designed to resist both axial and rotational load, the part that got me most excited was actually at the end of the article when they talk about the idea of magnetic bearings. While it is just briefly talked about I think that it is a very fascinating concept that while I love the idea of using magneticsto solve problems I honestly never would have thought of using them in bearings and I kinda feel dumb for this fact. But all in all cool article.
The humble bearing, from the first advent of the wheel we soon had the invention of the bearing. However, it is a simple one by today's standards, but yet it can still be a wonder to behold. Looking closer at many bearings, they appear to be a wheel within a wheel riding along the never-ending path. This article gives an excellent overview of the more delicate detailed parts they hold within. The how its made video helped provide a bit of information on the process, as well as a five-minute escape from the day's craziness. If anything this gave me more confidence in what I already knew about them. Getting ready to look more in-depth at the specifications of how they act and what they can be made soon in Machine design only fuels the excitement for this little thought of item.
Somehow I knew that his article would be one of the most commented on. There's nothing like a good article about some mechanical part or property to get all of ptm out of their holes and commenting on how they love it. I am indeed now becoming one of those people. In fact, I do have somewhat of a relationship with bearings. A relationship mainly based on the fat that I forget they exist and over look their use in situations where they would be beneficial. Let's harken back to first semester of my freshman yearm, where I took on the foolish task of trying to recreate one of Theo Jansen's strandbeest's, massive machines made of PVC tubing. And I decided to make mine out of wood, using THREADED ROD as an axle. Not a day goes by where I'm not thinking about how many mistakes I made with that build. Not the least of which forgetting that bearings existed, and that I could have just gone to home depot and fixed all my problems
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