Patent Overview of Aluminum Alloy Materials for Bearings

Bearings are widely used in various equipment such as internal combustion engines, railway locomotives, and cutting machine tools. Aluminum alloy is one of the most commonly used bearing materials. This paper takes aluminum alloy bearing materials as the analysis object, and focuses on the application information, core patents and important applicants for aluminum alloys for sliding bearings in the world and in China.


Bearings are widely used in various equipment such as internal combustion engines, railway locomotives, and cutting machine tools. Among them, the part supporting the shaft is called a journal, and the part matching the journal is called a bearing bush. The friction reducing material cast on the inner surface thereof to improve the friction property of the bearing surface is called a bearing lining. The material of the bearing bush and bearing bushing is collectively referred to as the plain bearing material [1]. The manufacture and research of bearing materials began in 1839, when the British Isaac Babbitt obtained the first patent for tin-based alloy bearing materials. In the following 100 years, the research on bearing materials has advanced by leaps and bounds. The development and progress have achieved great results.

In general, commonly used bearing materials can be roughly divided into three categories: metal materials, porous metal materials, and non-metal materials. Among them, metal materials mainly include babbitt alloy, copper alloy, lead alloy, aluminum alloy, etc. [1]. Aluminum alloy has good mechanical properties, thermal conductivity and good corrosion resistance, and is rich in resources and low in price. It is one of the most widely used bearing materials. This paper takes aluminum alloy bearing materials as the analysis object, and focuses on the analysis of patent application information and important applicants for aluminum alloy bearing materials in the world and China.

1. Overview of aluminum alloy bearing materials
The research, development and use of aluminum alloy bearing materials began in Germany and was mainly used in some military equipment. Later, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and other countries also carried out research on aluminum alloy bearing materials. Aluminum-based bearing alloys are mainly developed along two paths: the first is a hard high melting point component on an aluminum matrix and the second is a soft low melting point component in an aluminum matrix. Among the common hard components are: copper (Cu), silicon (Si), nickel (Ni), etc., soft components are: tin (Sn), lead (Pb), etc. [2].