Choosing Bearing Support Liner Material

In weight-critical aerospace applications, housings are made of lightweight aluminum or magnesium alloys that have thermal expansion coefficients about twice as high as those of the steel shaft and bearings. In such cases, a sandwich liner is commonly used between the bearing outer race and the housing. Choosing an optimum bearing liner material in such cases may be a frustrating task if the operating temperature range is large. In this paper, a set of relationships is provided to help the designer choose a bearing liner material without having to iterate with a number of different liner materials. A set of curves may then be drawn to facilitate material choice.