JP2585791B2 - Roller bearing cage member and rolling bearing incorporating the same - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Related Art] Recent advances in science and technology have been remarkable, and as a result, rolling bearings have been required to be used under increasingly severe conditions. It has caused bearing material and lubrication problems.

In the high-temperature region where conventional bearing material, bearing steel, cannot be used, bearings made of ceramics have begun to be used.For lubrication of the bearings, cages were manufactured using a material containing a solid lubricant, and the bearings were removed from the cages. A method of transferring a lubricant to a contact surface between a rolling element and a bearing ring has been adopted. Specifically, in response to the demand for using ceramic bearings in a temperature range from room temperature to a high temperature of about 500 ° C., a cage member made of a carbon material, chromium, and a ceramic material has been developed.

However, although this ceramic-based cage member can be used even in a high temperature range, it is still insufficient in the transfer characteristics, that is, the property of forming a thin and uniform lubricating film and the wear property among the properties required for the cage member. Hard to say.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Accordingly, the problem to be solved by the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned difficulties of the conventional ceramic retainer member, in other words, in terms of transfer characteristics and wear characteristics. Another object of the present invention is to newly develop a cage member which has remarkably excellent characteristics as compared with a conventional ceramic cage member and which can be used in a wide temperature range from room temperature to a high temperature of about 500 ° C.

[Means for solving the problem]

This problem is solved, in particular, by using a carbon-antimony-based composite material in which at least one of antimony and its alloy is contained in the whole open pores of the carbon material, as this kind of retainer member.

[Function and Configuration of the Invention]

In the present invention, a carbon material is impregnated with at least one of antimony and an alloy thereof, whereby a cage member for a rolling bearing using the same exhibits extremely excellent transfer characteristics and wear characteristics. As is clear from the examples, the material has extremely excellent properties as compared with a conventional retainer member in which chromium and ceramics are contained in a carbon material.

Also, by adding antimony or an alloy thereof to the carbon material, a large secondary effect of remarkably suppressing the oxidative consumption of the carbon material by oxygen in the air when used at a high temperature was also recognized.

Further, it can be sufficiently used as a retainer member even in a temperature range from room temperature to about 500 ° C.

The carbon material used in the present invention is not particularly limited, and various carbon materials can be used in a wide range. In addition to ordinary carbon materials, graphitic carbon materials and mesophase carbons are also effectively used. . It is desirable to use an isotropic carbon material because precision machining may be performed.

As the antimony alloy, an alloy of antimony and another metal is used.
b, Cu, Al, Zn and the like can be exemplified, and tin is particularly preferable. The proportion of antimony and other metals is appropriately determined depending on the type of other metal used, but usually 90 to 90% of antimony is used.
It is about 5% by weight, preferably about 75 to 35% by weight.

When preparing a material using a carbon material and these antimony or an alloy thereof, the preparation method is not limited at all, as long as all open pores of the carbon material are impregnated with antimony or an alloy thereof, particularly A means for melting and impregnating antimony or an alloy thereof into a carbon material is preferable.
More specifically, first, air present in the carbon material is removed under vacuum or decompression, and the air is immersed in a molten solution of antimony or its alloy, and then pressurized to sufficiently penetrate the antimony or its alloy into the carbon material. It is a method of impregnating and cooling. The members prepared by this method are particularly superior in transfer properties and wear properties as compared with other methods, such as mixing methods.

〔Example〕

 Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to Examples.

Example 1 Carbon material [manufactured by Toyo Tanso Co., Ltd. (grade name "IG-11")
Was roughly cut into the shape of a cage material test piece shown in FIG. 1, and this was treated under reduced pressure (1 mmHg) for 1 hour to remove air in the open pores in the carbon material, and then melted. Sufficiently dipped in antimony to impregnate antimony into all open pores in the carbon material, pressurize at about 100 kg / cm ² for 0.5 to 1 hour, cool to room temperature, and precision cut the surface and retain A component was prepared. At this time, the impregnation amount of antimony into the carbon material was 50% by weight.

Example 2 In Example 1, antimony-tin alloy (antimony: tin = 6: 4 weight ratio) was used instead of antimony. The amount of impregnation was 50% by weight, as in Example 1. All other processes were the same as in Example 1 to prepare a cage member.

Example 3 In Example 1, as a carbon material, a carbon material manufactured by Toyo Carbon Co., Ltd. (after compression molding of a mesophase carbon material,
(Which was fired at 1500 ° C. or higher), and the other steps were the same as in Example 1 to prepare a retainer member by impregnation with antimony.

In comparison with the examples of the present invention, conventionally known ceramic members were tested as Comparative Examples 1 and 2 under exactly the same conditions.

Comparative Example 1 A conventionally known ceramic member I (graphite, chrome,
Ceramic-based composite material: symbol A in Table 1) Comparative Example 2 A conventionally known ceramic-based member II (graphite
Chromium-ceramic composite material: symbol B in Table 1) Reference Example 1 Carbon graphite obtained by sintering artificial graphite with a tar-bit binder was impregnated with antimony at 850 ° C under reduced pressure, and pressurized with N ₂ to 10 kg / cm ^2. Antimony impregnated carbon graphite was obtained.

Experiment-1 Transfer characteristics and wear characteristics of each of the retainer members of Examples 1 to 3 and Comparative Examples 1 and 2 and Reference Example 1 were measured.

In the experiment, a high temperature bearing cage material evaluation tester shown in FIG. 1 was used. However, Fig. 1 (a) is a schematic side view, (b) is an explanatory view of the load system, (1) is a weight for holding machine load, (2) is a rotary / linear motion bearing, and (3) is a test. Piece,
(4) is an electric furnace, (5) is a rolling element (upper test piece),
(6) is a race (lower test piece), (7) is a universal joint,
(8) is an electric motor, (9) is a weight for orbital theory load,
(10) is a load cell, (11) is an arm, (12) is a cage load, (13) is a fixed shaft, (14) is a bearing load, (15) is a movable shaft, (16) is a load lever, (17) ) Indicates a fulcrum.

Originally, rolling bearings usually consist of an inner ring, an outer ring, rolling elements and a cage for keeping the rolling elements at equal intervals, and these parts are machined and assembled with high precision. When evaluating a self-lubricating retainer material, if it is incorporated into a bearing, it cannot be accurately evaluated due to other factors. Therefore, in this experiment, as shown in FIG. 1, the configuration of the bearing was simulated, and a rolling bearing cage material evaluation tester using a simple sample was used.

In FIG. 1, the relationship between the cage and the rolling element is reproduced by bringing the cage material test piece (3) into sliding contact with the test piece (5) (rolling element), and further, the upper test piece (5) (rolling element) ) And the lower test piece (6) (orbital ring) were brought into rolling contact to reproduce the relationship between the rolling elements and the orbital ring. This simulated the contact and rotation of each part of the rolling bearing.

The center of FIG. 1 is a test section, which is surrounded by an electric furnace (4) to obtain a high-temperature atmosphere.

The retainer test piece (3) is fixed to a rod by a holder and pressed against the rolling element (5) through a hole formed in the upper part of the electric furnace. The rod is held by a pole via an arm (11) and a rotary / linear motion bearing (2). The rod can move vertically and circumferentially around the pole, and the rolling element (5) Can be measured by a load cell (10) with which the other end of the arm contacts. The retainer load (12) is applied by a weight placed on the upper part of the rotary linear motion bearing (2). The amount of wear of the cage member is determined by measuring its weight.

The load on the raceway surface is applied by a combination of a lever and a weight from the lower shaft to which the raceway ring (6) is attached as shown in FIG. The cage load and the raceway load do not interfere with each other.

In order to evaluate the transfer characteristics, vibration is detected from the housing of the lower shaft, and the contact state between the rolling elements and the races is observed. Vibration shows a large value because the contact surface has poor lubrication,
This is when the surfaces of the rolling elements and races are worn or the lubricating film is formed unevenly on both surfaces.

Table 1 shows the cage members used in the experiments and their main characteristic values.

Under the high temperatures targeted by the present invention, ordinary metals including bearing steel cannot be used as a bearing member due to a decrease in hardness or the like, and therefore ceramics are used as the bearing member. Therefore, in the experiment of the present invention, a ceramic bearing was simulated, and a rolling element and a bearing ring made of silicon nitride (HLP material) were used. Therefore, the characteristics required for the cage member are not only heat resistance, but also lubricity to the ceramic member in a temperature range from room temperature to high temperature, that is, a low coefficient of friction, transferability, and wear resistance. .

As shown in Table 1, the carbon-antimony-based material was found to have good properties as a mechanical constituent material, good heat resistance, and high temperature lubricity, transferability, and wear resistance. Is completed.

The experimental conditions were: rotation speed: 1000 rpm, cage load: 20 N, bearing load: 200 N. The temperature was set at a predetermined temperature.

The experimental results are shown in FIGS. 2 shows the transfer characteristics, and FIG. 3 shows the wear characteristics (wear amount). The symbols A to D and F in each figure are the symbols shown in Table 1. The results also show the average of two or three experiments.

FIG. 2 shows the effective value of the vibration acceleration. All materials tend to increase with increasing temperature. But,
In Comparative Example 1, a significant increase was observed at 350 ° C. This is because the material itself becomes unstable in a temperature region near this.

FIG. 3 shows the wear amount of the retainer member. It is a value obtained by averaging the wear amount after 6 hours and 10 minutes (including transfer time of 10 minutes). In each case, it can be seen that the temperature increases as the temperature increases. At each temperature, the value of the embodiment is smaller than that of the comparative example, which is excellent in terms of abrasion.

Experiment-2 In Experiment-1, the retainer member of Example 3 was used, and the other components were treated in the same manner as in Experiment-1, and the transfer characteristics and wear characteristics at 500 ° C were measured. The results are also indicated by the mark ◎ in FIGS. A member impregnated with a mesophase carbon material is excellent in transferability and wear resistance.

Experiment 3 This experiment measured the relationship between the temperature of the carbon-metal composite in air and the oxidative consumption, and was one of the important characteristics of the retainer member when used at high temperatures.

Specimen size: 32 × 25 × 12.5mm ³ Test furnace: Silicone knit furnace Test method: A test piece was placed in a furnace set at 500 ° C., the test piece was taken out at an arbitrary time, and the change in weight was measured.

The results are shown in FIG. In the figure, (a) to (d) indicate the following, respectively.

(A): Normal graphite material (“IG-11”, manufactured by Toyo Tanso) (B): Impregnating material for carbon material of Sb-Sn alloy [Sample D] (Sb: 30, Sn: 20% by weight impregnation, Others are carbon. (C): Sb impregnated carbon material (Sb: impregnated with 50% by weight) [Sample (c)] (d): Cu impregnated carbon material (Cu: impregnated with 60% by weight) (E): Antimony-impregnated carbon material prepared in Reference Example 1 From the above experimental results, when Sb or Sb-Sn alloy is impregnated into the entire open pores of the carbon material, carbon material not impregnated with these materials.
Alternatively, the inventors have found that the oxidative consumption is significantly suppressed as compared with the case where other metals other than antimony are impregnated. This implies that the impregnation of Sb or its alloy enhances the transferability at high temperatures and the abrasion resistance, and when used as a cage member, the effect of suppressing the oxidative consumption of the material and extending the life. It shows that there is also.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an apparatus used for measuring characteristics of a retainer member. 2 to 4 are graphs showing the results of measuring various characteristics of the retainer member. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Weight for cage load 2 ... Rotating linear motion bearing 3 ... Test piece for cage member 4 ... Electric furnace 5 ... Upper test piece (rolling element) 6 ... Lower test piece (track ring)

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Kimio Koizumi 1-2-2 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Pref. Machinery and Technology Research Laboratory, Institute of Industrial Science and Technology (72) Inventor Tetsuro Imai 20 Ishikin, Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture Fujikoshi Corporation (72) Inventor Toshiaki Sogabe 576-19 Takuma, Takuma-cho, Mitoyo-gun, Kagawa Prefecture 56) References JP-A-50-158605 (JP, A) JP-A-64-35219 (JP, U)

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A treatment under a reduced pressure of 1 mmHg or less to remove air in open pores in a carbon material, and then immerse the same in molten ammotin or an alloy thereof at about 100 kg / cm ² for 0.5 to 1 hour. A cage member for a rolling bearing made of a material in which carbon material is impregnated with antimony or an alloy thereof under pressure. 2. The retainer member for a rolling bearing according to claim 1, wherein the antimony alloy is an alloy of antimony and tin. 3. A rolling bearing incorporating the retainer member according to claim 1.