Patent | Gothic V Bearing

This patent covers design for a journal bearing for a high-precision bidirectional driveshaft which minimizes wear and deviation of position.

I know what you’re thinking: Journal bearings. lame. Well you just need to remember production quantities are in the millions, and if these problems can be solved with something exceedingly cheap, simple, and sexy, then why wait.

Trying to describe the patent…

The primary novelty of this design are the arched bearing surfaces wherein the preexisting designs were flat surfaces. Flat surfaces rapidly wear with shaft loads and lead to drift due to the narrow contact zone being worn away. With the arched surfaces, the contact zone is wider which results in much less drift of the shaft position.

Tribology BACKGROUND

Tribology is the study of wear, debris, and friction.

Journal bearings are easily overlooked for many applications. They are far cheaper and for low shaft loads, have less viscous drag than ball-bearings (you’re kidding!). Furthermore a journal bearing is simple, cheaper, and fails very softly.

Optimal Journal Bearing Design:

• Determine the shaft load vectors to determine the contact surfaces. It is ideal to have the shaft suspended in a ‘wheelie’. Although the friction is not dependent on surface area, viscous drag of the lubricant is dependent.

• Grease groove placement

• Hairline grooves to pump out debris

• Optimizing materials (in this case Nickel plated centerless ground shaft on teflon impregnated Acetal bearing)