The Road of Bearing Technology Innovation: From Manufacturing to Smart Manufacturing

In the grand landscape of modern industry, bearings, known as the "industrial joints," play an irreplaceable core role despite their seemingly small size. From the precise operation of sophisticated instruments to the efficient transmission of large mechanical equipment, from daily transportation to aerospace equipment exploring the universe, wherever there is mechanical rotational motion, bearings silently support the process. The quality of their performance directly affects the stability, reliability, and service life of equipment, thereby influencing the operational efficiency and development process of the entire industrial system.

Traditional Manufacturing Models and Limitations of Bearings

For a considerable period in the past, traditional bearing manufacturing models dominated the industry. Take numerous domestic bearing enterprises as examples: the production process often relied heavily on manual operations. From the initial processing of raw materials to the fine grinding of components and final assembly, manual experience played a crucial role. Under this model, issues such as high labor intensity and low production efficiency gradually became prominent. For instance, in some small bearing processing plants, workers need to repeatedly operate simple machinery for long hours every day to complete processes such as turning and grinding. The daily output is limited, and product quality varies significantly due to differences in workers' conditions and skill levels, making it difficult to ensure product consistency.

Traditional manufacturing models also have obvious limitations in product precision and complexity. As industries advance toward high-endization, the requirements for bearing precision continue to rise. In fields such as high-end CNC machine tools and aero-engines, the required bearing precision has reached the submicron or even nanometer level. However, traditional processes are constrained by factors such as equipment precision and processing methods, making it difficult to meet such strict requirements. Meanwhile, for new-type bearings with complex structures and special functions, traditional manufacturing processes face huge challenges in production difficulty and cost control, struggling to achieve large-scale and efficient production.

Innovative Breakthroughs in Bearing Technology in the Era of Smart Manufacturing

As the wave of smart manufacturing sweeps the globe, the bearing industry has also ushered in profound changes, with a series of innovative technologies emerging rapidly.

Material Innovations

To meet the performance requirements of bearings in different working conditions, new materials continue to emerge. In high-temperature environments such as aero-engines and gas turbines, traditional bearing materials are prone to softening, deformation, and sharply reduced service life at high temperatures, becoming a bottleneck restricting equipment performance. Nowadays, by optimizing the alloy ratio and heat treatment process of high-speed tool steel, newly developed materials have seen their hot hardness index increase by more than 15% in environments above 600°C compared to traditional products, greatly enhancing the reliability of high-temperature bearings and clearing obstacles for the localization of related high-end equipment. In the steel production field, the patent of Tianjin Iron and Steel Group for "pillow block bearings used in the first section of high-speed wire rod roller tables" adopts a combined structure of single-side sealed bearings and oil 挡 rings (oil baffle rings), effectively preventing the intrusion of high-temperature water vapor and iron oxide powder, increasing the bearing service life in harsh working conditions by more than 30% and significantly improving the operational efficiency of steel production lines.

Manufacturing Process Innovations

The innovation of manufacturing processes is equally remarkable. Ultra-pure steel smelting technology has become the key to improving the quality of China's bearing steel. Through continuous research, Chinese steel enterprises have controlled the oxygen content in bearing steel at an extremely low level, significantly enhancing the fatigue life and operational stability of the steel. The application of intelligent quality management systems has even subverted traditional production models. Automated detection means achieve precise identification of product surface defects and whole-process monitoring, strongly supporting the goal of "zero-defect delivery" and enabling China's high-end bearing steel to possess strong competitiveness in the international market. In the production link, digital and automated processing technologies are widely applied. For example, automated grinding and turning technologies can precisely control processing parameters, achieving high-precision and high-efficiency production, and greatly improving product quality stability and production efficiency.

Intelligent Design and Simulation Technologies

Intelligent design and simulation technologies inject new vitality into bearing research and development. With the help of advanced computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) software, engineers can carry out precise design and simulation analysis of bearing structures and performance in a virtual environment. When developing new wind power bearings, by simulating the operating status of bearings under different wind speeds and loads, the design scheme is optimized in advance, reducing the number of physical prototype tests, shortening the R&D cycle, lowering R&D costs, and simultaneously improving product performance and reliability.

Application Cases of Smart Manufacturing in Bearing Production

Stepping into the wind power gearbox bearing intelligent factory of Zhongtuo bearings, it is like entering a futuristic world full of technological sense. In the workshop, robotic arms wave precisely, automated production lines operate in an orderly manner, and AGV automated guided vehicles shuttle busily, realizing a high degree of automation and intelligence in the entire production process. Here, the whole process of design, material selection, production, and delivery is empowered by "data." Song Haitao, a technical engineer, has witnessed this transformation: his 16 years of work experience have been transformed into practical operation data, and craftsmanship has been "quantified." Not only has the product qualification rate increased significantly, but work efficiency has also been remarkably improved—the time to produce a set of large bearings has been shortened from the original six to seven days to two days. By investing more than 1 billion yuan in intelligent transformation of production lines, Luoyang Bearing Group has established load spectra applied to different mainframes, making innovation in major equipment bearings more evidence-based; it has also built a big data center to achieve precise management and optimization of the production process. At present, Luoyang Bearing holds a market share of more than 40% in wind power main bearings, with technologies reaching the international leading level.

Zhejiang Huazhou Technology Co., Ltd. has also achieved remarkable results in the field of smart manufacturing. In its intelligent workshop, robotic arms precisely grab and assemble, and the production line operates at high speed, with more than 300 high-performance bearings coming off the production line every minute. The company's independently developed oil-free and low-noise bearings, with special material formulas and precision processing technology, extend service life by 30% and have a noise value 5 decibels lower than the industry benchmark, breaking foreign technical monopolies and occupying 25% of the market for automobile seat hinge systems. In the production command center, giant electronic screens display global order data in real time, supported by a powerful smart manufacturing digital system. By the end of this year, after the company relocates to a new intelligent plant, its production capacity is expected to double, striding toward the goal of entering the global bearing industry's TOP 10 by 2028.

Industrial Impact and Outlook Brought by Bearing Technology Innovation

The innovation of bearing technology has had a profound impact on the entire industry. On the one hand, it has strongly promoted the upgrading of related industries. In the new energy vehicle field, as vehicles impose strict requirements on bearings for lower friction coefficients, stronger corrosion resistance, and longer service life, bearing technology innovation has prompted continuous improvements in new energy vehicle performance, further enhancing safety and stability and driving the vigorous development of the new energy vehicle industry. In the wind power industry, the breakthrough in high-power wind power bearing technology, such as the global largest batch of 18-megawatt offshore wind turbines using domestically developed yaw and pitch bearings, marks that China's wind power industry has reached the world's leading level in core technologies, laying a solid foundation for the development of offshore wind power toward larger single-unit capacities and supporting the green transformation of the energy industry.

On the other hand, it has enhanced the international competitiveness of the industry. Relying on technological innovation, China's bearing industry has made its mark in the international market. In the first quarter of 2025, China's bearing export volume reached 205,182 tons, a year-on-year increase of 8.7%. High-end bearing products have gradually broken foreign monopolies, achieved import substitution, and increasingly enhanced their status in the global industrial chain.

Looking to the future, bearing technology will continue to advance toward higher precision, higher reliability, and greater intelligence. With the deep integration of emerging technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and big data with bearing manufacturing, intelligent bearings will possess functions such as self-sensing, self-diagnosis, and self-repair, realizing the health management of the entire equipment life cycle. In the material field, green and environmentally friendly new materials such as ceramic bearings and bio-based lubricants will be more widely applied, in line with the global development trend of green manufacturing. At the same time, bearing enterprises and complete machine manufacturers will strengthen cooperation to build innovative models such as "bearing health management platforms," promoting the collaborative development of the industry toward high-end, intelligent, and green directions, injecting new momentum into global industrial development, and demonstrating the charm and strength of China's "intelligent" manufacturing on a broader international stage.