THK CO., LTD. has newly developed the best-performing high-speed rotary bearing in THK history-the High-Speed, Double-Row Angular Contact Ring BWH-and began accepting orders for it on November 2.
The High-Speed, Double-Row Angular Contact Ring BWH is a rotary bearing with balls aligned inside a cage between the inner and outer rings, and it is part of the THK Rotary Series along with the cross-roller ring. The main features of this product are its ability to receive loads in all directions as well as its high rigidity and rotational accuracy, which are equal to that of cross-roller rings. Furthermore, by adopting a new structure to change the rolling elements from rollers to balls, this product achieves the greatest high-speed performance in THK history.
The cross-roller ring has been widely utilized for many years as a THK rotary bearing that has been adopted in a number of applications such as rotary tables for machining centers, joints for industrial robots, and reduction gears. However, customers have been demanding increasingly high levels of performance in recent years, and there are many who are asking for rotary bearing products that demonstrate both high rigidity and high-speed performance. With that being the case, THK started on developing this new product to satisfy the needs of customers.
As a result, THK has now created the High-Speed, Double-Row Angular Contact Ring BWH, which satisfies the need for high-speed performance in addition to suppressing temperature increases due to heat generation by changing the rolling elements from rollers to balls. This change largely suppresses temperature increases due to heat generation from continuous high-speed rotation, and it is now possible to answer the market needs in the high-speed rotation range, which was not sufficiently covered before. In the machine tool market in particular, for equipment such as machining centers and multi-functional machines that consolidate production processes, machine performance and productivity can be increased by incorporating turning functions and other features such as high-speed rotary tables.
The product lineup will be expanded to inner diameters of ø100, ø120, and ø200, with plans to add large-diameter models in the future.
THK will continue to contribute to the compactness, high rigidity, and high-speed performance of a wide range of equipment, from general industrial machinery to precision machinery and high-precision machine tools.