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Greaseless Ball Bearings Developed

posted by janrinok on Wednesday May 27 2015, @03:38AM   
from the slip-slidin'-away dept.

CoolHand writes:

Gizmag tells us about how a Japanese company, Coo Space, has developed an innovation in ball bearings that will allow the balls to automagically space themselves out. That will lead to vastly reduced friction which, in turn, will lead to the elimination of the necessity to grease the bearing to reduce the friction. This is potentially a huge development across all forms of industry.

The Autonomous Decentralised Bearing (ADB) puts a small indentation, or groove, into the outer bearing race. As the balls slide over this tiny groove, they slow down ever so slightly, and then speed back up. This does nothing to affect the bearing's regular performance, but if two balls are touching each other as they cross over the groove, the first ball's deceleration puts a tiny brake on the second ball, which separates the two as they go around the races.

It's an incredibly simple and tiny change, but it does a remarkable job.
...
Without the need for a cage, you can run these bearings un-lubricated, and that's where the real performance benefits come in. Coo Space claims the ADB experiences as little as 10 percent of the friction of a regular ball bearing

Here is a YouTube video of the bearings spacing themselves out within the races.

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[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]

• What does this mean for spinning disks? What does this mean for spinning disks? (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @04:14AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @04:14AM (#188452)

  Hard drive motors that never wear out?

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• Re:What does this mean for spinning disks? Re:What does this mean for spinning disks? (Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday May 27 2015, @06:52AM

  by anubi (2828) on Wednesday May 27 2015, @06:52AM (#188492) Journal

  I was also considering spaceborne applications where one has one helluva time keeping lubricants from simply outgassing into vapor.

  Sometimes it is one helluva problem to keep lubricant systems going in hostile environments.

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  "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

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  • Re:What does this mean for spinning disks? (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @08:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @08:00AM (#188510)

    Or any vacuum system... many more vacuum systems than space.

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• Re:What does this mean for spinning disks? (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday May 27 2015, @07:17AM

  by Bot (3902) on Wednesday May 27 2015, @07:17AM (#188500) Journal

  And more life for the SL1200s too. Which are already more eternal than us.

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  Account abandoned.

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• Re:What does this mean for spinning disks? (Score: 1) by Frost on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:36PM

  by Frost (3313) on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:36PM (#189208)

  It's been many years since HDDs switched to Fluid Dynamic Bearings [wikipedia.org]. They basically don't wear out.

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