Patent ID: 7572062

Claim:
An axial tapered roller bearing, comprising: an upper pressure disk, a lower pressure disk and a plurality of tapered rollers arranged between the pressure disks, the rollers having peripheries contacting the pressure disks and having radially outer end faces; a disk cage operable to hold the rollers at uniform intervals from one another in the circumferential direction; the other of pressure disks has a first inner surface formed as a flat mating circulation path for the tapered rollers; the one of the pressure disks has a first inner surface formed as a circulation path running radially obliquely outward for the tapered rollers and has a circumferential outer rim with an annular surface facing the tapered rollers, and shaped and sized to be in radial supporting contact with the outer end faces of the tapered rollers; the annular surface of the outer rim of the other pressure disk facing the tapered rollers has a concave curvature and the outer end faces of the tapered rollers have a convex curvature which is operable to cause the tapered roller bearing between the tapered rollers and the outer rim, both in the vertical and in the circumferential direction, to have a lubricating wedge with a constant geometry which is suitable for hydrodynamic pressure development by a lubricant, wherein the curvature of the concave annular surface of the outer rim is formed as a first radius and the curvature of the convex end faces of the tapered rollers is formed as a second radius, the first radius of the concave annular surface being greater than the second radius of the convex end faces with a defined relationship, wherein the centers of the first and second radii respectively of the concave annular surface of the outer rim and of the convex end faces of the tapered rollers are arranged to define a circular contact point path between the end faces of the tapered rollers and the annular surface of the outer rim, and wherein the circular contact point path has a height (h B ) of about ⅓ the height of the outer rim.