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Tech Stuff
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America Had No Ball Bearings in 1940 — So Timken Built Tapered Rollers Instead... August 17th, 1943, 30,000 ft above Schweinfort, Germany, the lead bombardier of the 230 B17 flying fortresses approaching Schweinford watched through his Nordan bomb site as anti-aircraft flack exploded around the formation.
Below five factories producing nearly 2/3 of Germany's ball bearings became visible through breaks in the smoke.
The German aviation industry alone consumed 2.4 million ball bearings per month.
If this raid succeeded, Germany's war machine might grind to a halt.
But as the bombs fell and German fighters tore into the bomber formations, a different reality was emerging thousands of miles away in Canton, Ohio.
While American bombers were dying to destroy German ball bearing production, 60 B17s lost that day with 102 crewmen killed, American factories were producing something Germany couldn't match.
tapered roller bearings that worked better than ball bearings for most applications and didn't depend on German technology at all.
This is the documented story of how an immigrant German carriage maker invented a superior bearing design in 1898.
How his company became America's answer to Germany's ballbearing monopoly.
and how that obscure mechanical innovation helped win World War II.
Friction transforms kinetic energy into heat while damaging surfaces and wasting energy.
It's a fundamental problem in all mechanical motion.
The man who could reduce friction fundamentally, German immigrant Henry Timkin believed, would achieve something of real value to the world.
Henry Timkin was born August 16th, 1831 in Tarmmstead, Kingdom of Hanover.
He immigrated to the United States with his family at age 7, settling in Missouri.
As a teenager, he apprenticed to a leading carriage and wagon maker.
By age 24, he had established his own carriage factory in St.
Louis.
In 1877, Timkin received a patent for the Timkin buggy spring, which became widely used throughout America and produced on a royalty basis by numerous companies.
The spring's success made Timkin well known nationally and his carriage business flourished.
Around 1895, Timkin took interest in problems created by friction in wagon design.
Conventional bearings of the 19th century worked well at reducing friction under vertical loads, but encountered problems when wheels had to bear heavy loads from the sides as when vehicles turn corners.
Ball bearings, the most common anti-friction bearing of the era, used spherical balls rolling between an inner and outer race.
They worked excellently for light loads and high speeds, but had limitations.
When subjected to heavy radial loads and thrust loads simultaneously, like a wagon wheel turning while carrying weight, ball bearings wore quickly.
Timkin, with help from his two sons and a nephew, began experiments to make a better bearing.
They developed a revolutionary concept.
Instead of balls, use tapered rollers.
The rollers would be cone-shaped, arranged at an angle between cone-shaped races.
This geometry would allow the bearing to handle both radial loads perpendicular to the shaft and thrust loads parallel to the shaft simultaneously, exactly what vehicle wheels needed.
On May 1st, 1898, Henry Timkin received two patents for his tapered roller bearing design.
The innovation was profound.
His bearing could handle five times the load of an equivalent ball bearing while maintaining lower friction and longer life.
In 1899, Timkin incorporated the Timkin rollerbearing axle company in a corner of his St.
I'll add this. The first massive study on metal fatigue was with the railroads. They were concerned about the railroad track failing with "Chunks" falling out if the rails. After a multi year study, they realized metal rails are actually a "Crystallin" structure. The wheels on the rails compressed the rails up and down rapidly creating a "Stress Fracture". It's been called the longest bearing surface on the planet. ↓
Below five factories producing nearly 2/3 of Germany's ball bearings became visible through breaks in the smoke.
The German aviation industry alone consumed 2.4 million ball bearings per month.
If this raid succeeded, Germany's war machine might grind to a halt.
But as the bombs fell and German fighters tore into the bomber formations, a different reality was emerging thousands of miles away in Canton, Ohio.
While American bombers were dying to destroy German ball bearing production, 60 B17s lost that day with 102 crewmen killed, American factories were producing something Germany couldn't match.
tapered roller bearings that worked better than ball bearings for most applications and didn't depend on German technology at all.
This is the documented story of how an immigrant German carriage maker invented a superior bearing design in 1898.
How his company became America's answer to Germany's ballbearing monopoly.
and how that obscure mechanical innovation helped win World War II.
Friction transforms kinetic energy into heat while damaging surfaces and wasting energy.
It's a fundamental problem in all mechanical motion.
The man who could reduce friction fundamentally, German immigrant Henry Timkin believed, would achieve something of real value to the world.
Henry Timkin was born August 16th, 1831 in Tarmmstead, Kingdom of Hanover.
He immigrated to the United States with his family at age 7, settling in Missouri.
As a teenager, he apprenticed to a leading carriage and wagon maker.
By age 24, he had established his own carriage factory in St.
Louis.
In 1877, Timkin received a patent for the Timkin buggy spring, which became widely used throughout America and produced on a royalty basis by numerous companies.
The spring's success made Timkin well known nationally and his carriage business flourished.
Around 1895, Timkin took interest in problems created by friction in wagon design.
Conventional bearings of the 19th century worked well at reducing friction under vertical loads, but encountered problems when wheels had to bear heavy loads from the sides as when vehicles turn corners.
Ball bearings, the most common anti-friction bearing of the era, used spherical balls rolling between an inner and outer race.
They worked excellently for light loads and high speeds, but had limitations.
When subjected to heavy radial loads and thrust loads simultaneously, like a wagon wheel turning while carrying weight, ball bearings wore quickly.
Timkin, with help from his two sons and a nephew, began experiments to make a better bearing.
They developed a revolutionary concept.
Instead of balls, use tapered rollers.
The rollers would be cone-shaped, arranged at an angle between cone-shaped races.
This geometry would allow the bearing to handle both radial loads perpendicular to the shaft and thrust loads parallel to the shaft simultaneously, exactly what vehicle wheels needed.
On May 1st, 1898, Henry Timkin received two patents for his tapered roller bearing design.
The innovation was profound.
His bearing could handle five times the load of an equivalent ball bearing while maintaining lower friction and longer life.
In 1899, Timkin incorporated the Timkin rollerbearing axle company in a corner of his St.
I'll add this. The first massive study on metal fatigue was with the railroads. They were concerned about the railroad track failing with "Chunks" falling out if the rails. After a multi year study, they realized metal rails are actually a "Crystallin" structure. The wheels on the rails compressed the rails up and down rapidly creating a "Stress Fracture". It's been called the longest bearing surface on the planet. ↓
