Plastic bearings are now increasingly popular due to dry-running lubrication-free behavior. Solid polymer plain bearings is a kind of plastic bearings, this kind of plastic bearings are low weight, corrosion resistant, and maintenance free. After research spanning decades of plastic bearings, an accurate calculation of the service life of polymer plain bearings is possible today. Designing with plastic bearings, especially to the solid polymer plain bearings is complicated by the wide range, and non-linearity, of coefficient of thermal expansion. These materials can heat rapidly when loaded.
Plastic bearings are limited by the injection molding process. Not all shapes are possible with this process and the shapes which are possible are limited to what is considered good design practice for injection molding. Plastic bearings are subject to the same design cautions as all other plastic parts: creep, high thermal expansion, softening (increased wear/reduced life) at elevated temperature, brittle fractures at cold temperatures, swelling due to moisture absorption. While most bearing-grade plastic bearings and polymer bearings are designed to reduce these design cautions, they still exist and should be carefully considered before specifying an a solid polymer (plastic) type.
Plastic bearings are now everywhere from photocopy machines to the tills in the supermarket. Other applications include farm equipment, textile machinery, medical devices, food and packaging machines, car seating, marine equipment and many more.
plastic bearings are used in drawer slides, sliding doors, windows, conveyors, medical instruments and OA Equipment.
