Reduction of Production Cost of a Cage for Tapered Roller Bearing

Abstract

In manufacturing industry, manufacturing with better quality at low cost becomes popular as it suggests a beneficial way in context of better system efficiencies . The cost attributes of the product are material cost, processing cost, material handling cost and man power involved into it. The objective of this project is to reduce the production cost of the bearing cage material . In the present work, it is attempted to reduce a strip width for the production of bearing cages. . In this project the issues related to material handling and redundant operations are also addressed to decrease overall production cost. Material waste was identified during the blanking operation. The blank size is calculated using blank development method and it is found that the strip width is oversize. It was observed that the strip guide was oversize which does not locate the strip properly with respect to the blanking die. Therefore, a new strip guide was designed, fabricated and implemented. The guides are fabricated from the wear resistance material which has higher hardness than the strip. The strip width and thickness are reduced to 5.2-6.7 percentage. An FE simulation has been carried out to predict the formability of the curve with the proposed blank thickness. The minimum thickness in the retainer is 2.18 and it is permissible. The material requirement is reduced by 5 percentage.