Grp27: Right Shaft Bearing
Right Shaft Bearing
Material: Cast Steel and hard plastic
Manufacturing Process: Bearing was ground, oil hole was drilled. Bearings and bearing cap are pressed in.
Function: Allows shaft to rotate smoothly and almost frictionless preventing excessive wear.
28 small cylindrical rods are located inside the bearing. These rods spin in a lubricated fluid and create the frictionless smooth rotation of the shaft.
Cast steel was selected to prevent excessive wear over a short time.
Compression force on the outside of the bearing, and trace amounts of frictional force.
The magnitude of the compression force is about 20 lbs. This is to keep the bearing pressed into the shell.
The material choice does effect the process. Since this is a harder metal it will take more to process and more time to make.
The shape does effect the manufacturing process, If it was do be another shape then a lathe would not be used instead, either a mill, or some other process would be used to create the shape. If the new shape was close to a circle such as if it was changed to an ellipse, then a lathe would most likely still be used.
Each manufacturing process was chosen for this component because it was the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to do it at high volumes of product.
The bearing has a particular shape to reduce friction inside the bearing. Also was made into a circle to match the direction of rotation of the shaft.
The component is functional.
On a scale from 1-5, 1 being the simple like a ball, and 5 being complex like a engine, this component is a 3. It is more complex than a bucket but less complex than a phone. It is still very simple but has many like parts and pieces that make it not so simple.