The hangers which carry the bearing boxes supporting shafting may be divided into four principal classes:—Those in which the bearing boxes are permitted to swivel, and to a certain extent to adjust themselves, to the axial line of the shafting, and having means to adjust the vertical height of the bolts.
Those in which the bearings are incapable of such adjustments.
Those in which the bearing boxes are supported on each side; and those in which the bearing is supported on one side only, so that the shafting may be taken down without disturbing the couplings.
The first named are desirable in that they eliminate to a certain extent the strains due to the extra journal bearing friction which occurs when the shafting is sprung out of its true alignment, and obviate to a great extent the labor involved in fitting the bore of the bearing boxes to the journals of the shafting, so as to hold the same with its axis in a straight line, while they permit of vertical movement to attain vertical alignment.
Fig. 2599.
[Fig. 2599] represents Wm. Sellers & Co.’s ball-and-socket hanger which has come into extensive use throughout the United States: a represents the frame of the hanger threaded to receive the cylindrical threaded plungers d e, which therefore by rotation advance or recede respectively from the centre of the bearing boxes b c.
The ends of these plungers are concave, and the top and bottom halves of the bearing boxes are provided with a spheroidal section fitting into the concaves of the plungers, so that when the plungers are adjusted to fit (a working fit) against the boxes, the latter are held in a ball-and-socket or universal joint, which permits motion in any direction, the centre of such motion being central to the spherical concaves on the ends of plungers e d.
To adjust the vertical height of the bearings or boxes, it is simply necessary to rotate the plungers d e, in the threaded holes in the frame. f is simply a dish to catch the lubricating oil after it has passed through the bearing.