Aircraft engines and gearboxes are highly demanding applications that require extremely high reliability and tight tolerance ranges.

For over 50 years, SKF Aerospace has been responding to these challenges with products and services, and is an important engine and gearbox manufacturer in Z.

Aircraft engine and gearbox bearings

Ball bearings and roller bearings used in aerospace must operate reliably in environments that are critical to life safety. So, in aerospace applications, choosing bearings that can provide optimal performance is a complex process. This requires a thorough understanding of the design, materials, lubricants, operating speed, temperature limits, manufacturing capabilities, and quality requirements of bearings.

SKF aircraft engines design and produce bearings according to customer specified application requirements. Every SKF aircraft engine product is manufactured with Z-quality materials.

The steel used for bearing rings and rolling elements is made using vacuum degassing or vacuum melting technology, so its cleanliness and homogeneity are very high. Before manufacturing bearing components, all materials must undergo metallurgical, chemical, and mechanical inspections. The materials used for SKF aircraft engine bearings are subjected to heat treatment in a precise standard smelting furnace under strict metallurgical control. When heat treating high temperature and corrosion-resistant steel commonly used in aviation engine bearings, Z advanced vacuum furnace must be used, equipped with compressed nitrogen quenching and forced convection heating treatment technology. These vacuum furnaces achieve precise thermal cycling through the control capability of the Z-tip.

SKF aircraft engine quality control personnel use Z-tip surface analyzers to determine the flatness and roughness of bearing raceways. Using electronic mechanical instruments to determine the structural characteristics such as hole positions. Use non-destructive evaluation techniques to determine defects in the surface and subsurface of finished bearing components.