Toroidal roller bearings are well known. The bearing type is characterized by its ability to be able to angularly misalign and axially displace the inner ring and the outer ring of the bearing. This functionality is advantageous in several different types of applications. One common bearing set up on an axle is to mount one toroidal roller bearing, the non-locating bearing, at a first position and to mount a spherical roller bearing, the locating bearing, at a second position. There are obviously many other types of bearing arrangements possible with a toroidal roller bearing.
It is also well known to have a cage, also known as a retainer, in the toroidal roller bearing for separating and holding the roller elements in the bearing. One such cage is for example described in the European patent EP0520968B1 presenting a cage for a roller bearing. The cage is provided with pockets, each one of which is intended to receive a roller. The cage is further designed with opposed guiding surfaces on lateral bars in the pocket, which guiding surfaces are intended to cooperate with a roller received in the pocket, at the axial middle portion of said roller. The guiding surfaces are arranged on middle portions of the cage, which middle portions are bent inwardly. The cage thereby will be centered by means of the guiding surfaces at the same time as the bars have a guiding function and prevent two adjacent rollers from contacting each other. The guiding surfaces are designed in appropriate manner for ascertaining the centering of the cage. This cage design is thus centered and guided by the rollers in the toroidal roller bearing. One drawback with this cage design is that it makes it difficult to assemble wider and larger toroidal roller bearings. For some certain widths, it is impossible to insert the roller elements into the pockets of the cage at assembly of the bearing. A solution to this drawback for wider and larger bearings has been to provide a split cage design. For instance, one of the annular rings of the cage may be fastened after the roller elements have been inserted into the bearing and the cage pockets. The annular ring may then be fastened by e.g. screws and bolts. Furthermore, the cage presented in EP0520968B1 is a roller guided cage, which not always is preferable.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds