Abstract: Disclosed is a multi-layered plain bearing which comprises a steel back, an intermediate layer made of an aluminum alloy and an aluminum-base bearing alloy layer comprising one or more elements selected from the group consisting of Cu, Zn, Mg and Si. The aluminum-base bearing alloy layer is bonded to the steel back via the intermediate layer and subsequently subjected to a solid solution treatment at a temperature of not lower than 400° C. The adjacent region of the intermediate layer to the steel back consists of, by mass, 2% to 8% of Si, and the balance of Al and incidental impurities.

Abstract: In a hydraulic shock-absorber comprising a cylinder, a piston rod provided with a rebound stopper secured thereto, and a rod guide provided at an end of said cylinder which rod guide butts against the rebound stopper at an extension stroke end of the piston rod, the rod guide is formed of a plate and comprises, at the location of butting against the rebound stopper, a butting planar portion extending radially of the cylinder from a lower end of the inner cylindrical portion against which butting planar portion the rebound stopper butts, and a butting slant portion extending downward obliquely toward the cylinder from an outer end of the butting planar portion against which butting slant portion an radially outer portion of the rebound stopper butts, thereby enabling the rod guide to be prevented from being deformed and also allowing the piston rod to always slide smoothly.

Abstract: Disclosed is a plain bearing having a back metal, a bearing alloy layer and an overlay layer, in which the bearing alloy layer and the overlay layer are formed on the inner surface of the metal in this order. The inner surface of the bearing alloy is provided with circumferential broad width recesses and narrow recesses in which the overlay material is filled. The fatigue resistance and were resistance are ensured by the zone of the narrow width recesses. The plain bearing exhibits high embeddability for a foreign substance by presence of the zone of the broad width recesses.

Abstract: There is disclosed a sliding member which slidably contacts an counterpart member with friction and in which a friction force is varied without changing a contact pressure. A sliding member 11 is formed by covering a steel plate with sliding materials 13a to 13e different in friction coefficient. In this case, when a sliding direction of the counterpart member 14 is set to directions of arrows A and B, a sliding material 13a of a low friction coefficient is disposed in the middle, and the sliding materials 13b to 13e are arranged so that the friction coefficient gradually increases toward both terminal sides in the directions of arrows A and B of the sliding material 13a. According to the sliding member 11, the friction force increases as the counterpart member 14 moves in the directions of arrows A and B from the middle.

Abstract: There is disclosed a sliding bearing provided with a sliding bearing layer and a back metal layer bonded to the outer face of the sliding bearing layer, the back face of which back metal layer being coated with a phosphate coating at a portion where fretting wear is apt to occur while coated with a coating of a thermally good conductor at another portion where no phosphate coating is provided, whereby seizure resistance as well as fretting resistance is improved because the dispersing of heat can be improved by the coating of the thermally good conductor.

Abstract: A plain bearing comprising a back metal layer, a bearing alloy layer and an overlay which coats the bearing alloy layer. The overlay is made of a lead-free tin-base alloy which comprises from more than 2 wt % to 10 wt % Ag. The lead-free tin-base alloy may further comprise 0.1 wt % to 25 wt % of one or more elements selected from a group consisting of Cu, Sb, Zn and Ni.

Abstract: A copper-based sliding material produced by sintering, comprising at least two phases of copper and/or copper alloys which phases have hardness levels different form each other, and hard particles with an average particle size of 0.1 to 10 &mgr;m which are dispersed in at least one phase with the exception of a softest phase in an amount of 0.1 to 10 vol.% of the whole copper-based sliding material, said sliding material satisfying (H2/H1)≧1.2 in which H1 is the Vickers hardness of the softest phase and in which H2 is the Vickers hardness of a phase hardest in hardness including said hard particles.

Abstract: Bush 4 is fabricated by providing porous sintered metal layer 7 of copper on the surface side of back metal layer 5 of steel plate through copper plating layer 6 and coating the inside and the surface of porous sintered metal layer 7 with sliding material 8 by impregnation. Sliding material 8 comprises 1-25 vol. % of tetrafluoroethylene-perfluoroalkylvinyl ether copolymer resin, 1-25 vol. % of at least one member selected from the group consisting of oxybenzoylpolyester resin and polyimide resin and 0.1-10 vol. % of hard particles having a Mohs hardness of 4 or more and average particle sizes of 5 &mgr;m or less such as Al2O3 and SiC, the balance being polytetrafluoroethylene resin (55 vol. % or more of the total siding material) as the main component. 0.5-25 vol. % of a solid lubricant such as graphite and MOS2 can be further contained in total together with the hard particles.

Abstract: Disclosed is a copper alloy sliding material comprising 0.5 to 15 mass % Sn and 0.1 to 10 vol % of hard particles consisting of one or more selected from WC, W2C and Mo2C. The hard particles have preferably an average particle size of 0.1 to 10 &mgr;m, whereby they are dispersed in the copper alloy matrix so as to make the sliding-contact surface uneven, from which the hard particles protrude partially. The sliding material comprises an amount or a total amount of not more than 40 mass % of one or more selected from Ni, Ag, Fe, Al, Zn, Mn, Co, Si and P, an amount or a total amount of not more than 10 mass % of Bi and/or Pb, and/or an amount or a total amount of not more than 10 vol % of a solid lubricant comprising BN, graphite, MoS2 and/or WS2.

Abstract: A polytetrafluoroethylene is added to a base resin consisting essentially of polyether ether ketone so that the proportion of polytetrafluoroethylene becomes 0.1 to 50% by weight based on the resin layer and dispersed in the form of particles in the base resin, whereby when the resulting resin layer is bonded to a backing metal to form a composite bearing, the peel strength of the resin layer per se and mechanical strength such as bonding force or the like between the backing metal and the resin layer can be inhibited from being deteriorated. When polytetrafluoroethylene having a molecular weight of 300,000 to 500,000 is used, it can be more easily dispersed in the form of particles in the base resin.

Abstract: In a sliding bearing in which a bearing metal layer is covered with a coating layer, the coating layer comprises a thermosetting resin as a base resin and soft metal particles dispersed in the base resin in an amount of 0.1 to 10% by volume based on the volume of the coating layer. The soft metal is harder than the base resin and has a higher thermal conductivity than the base resin, so that the wear resistance and anti-seizure property of the sliding bearing are improved. In particular, when the soft metal particles are of copper, silver, tin, zinc or the like, the soft metal particles react with the sulfur contained in a lubricating oil to form a thin metal sulfide film excellent in lubricity on the surface of the particles, whereby the coefficient of friction is made smaller.

Abstract: There is provided a copper-based sliding alloy excellent in wear resistance and anti-seizure property. A phase of 2 to 30 wt. % lead is dispersed in the copper alloy. This lead phase contains 0.1 to 6 vol. % hard particles such as SiC, SiO2, Si3N4, Al2O3, TiC, WC and TiN having an average particle size of 5 to 25 &mgr;m. Because hard particles are included in the lead phase, wear resistance is excellent and anti-seizure property is improved. The lead phase, which is soft, serves as a cushion and the attack on a mating member by hard particles is reduced. Further, the falling-off of lead is minimized because the lead phase also includes the hard particles.

Abstract: Disclosed is a sliding bearing in which a heat emission property of the sliding bearing is improved without affecting the original function of an overlay layer. An overlay layer is formed on a higher load-side bearing half, and extends circumferentially from a central portion thereof toward each of opposite ends thereof. Any overlay layer is not formed on a lower load-side bearing half, so that a bearing alloy remains exposed to the surface of this bearing half.

Abstract: There is provided a plain bearing in which 0.3 to 25 vol. % of hard particles, having a mean particle diameter of not more than 1.5 &mgr;m, are dispersed in a main load portion of the overlay, so that the main load portion is formed into a hard region harder than the other portion of the overlay. With this construction, the main load portion is enhanced in wear resistance while the other portion is enhanced in foreign matter embeddability. Therefore, there is provided the plain bearing which is less liable to undergo seizure due to abnormal wear even if solid foreign matter are included into lubricating oil, thus exhibiting excellent wear resistance and foreign matter embeddability.

Abstract: A roller supporting device which comprises a pair of supporting arms, a supporting shaft attached between the pair of supporting arms in a non-rotatable manner, and a roller having an inner hole in the central part thereof, the roller being disposed between the pair of supporting arms and being supported in a rotatable manner by the supporting shaft inserted through the inner hole, the roller being arranged to rotate along with the relative movement with a mating member by making the roller contact with the mating member, wherein a cut out portion, which extends in the axial direction on the outer circumferential surface of the supporting shaft, is formed at an appropriate portion except the portion on which the inner circumferential surface of the inner hole of the roller is pressed due to the load applied to the roller from the mating member, thereby defining an oil passage which extends in the axial direction between the supporting shaft and the inner circumferential surface of the inner hole of the roller

Abstract: There is disclosed a high temperature sliding alloy consisting of, by weight, 2 to 8% Cr, 2 to 10% Fe, 0.1 to 1.5% Si, 2 to 22% Co, 1.4 to 11% Mo, and the balance Ni, wherein 1 to 35% by weight of Co—Mo—Cr—Si base hard particles are dispersed in a matrix of the sliding alloy, and each of the hard particles has an oxide phase formed on a surface thereof. With this construction, the sliding alloy exhibits excellent sliding properties and particularly a low friction coefficient and excellent wear resistance in the temperature range of from a room temperature to 900° C.

Abstract: In a rack guide disposed in a casing of a rack and pinion type steering system for slidably supporting a rack bar having rack teeth which engage with a pinion rotatably supported in the casing, the area for bearing the load of the rack bar can be fixed. A slide bearing member 21 has a three-layered structure consisting of a backing metal 22 made of bronze, a sintered alloy layer 23 and a synthetic resin layer 24, the surface of the synthetic resin layer 24 comprising sliding-contact surface portions 25, 26 formed intermittently with the center thereof at the center of curvature “O” of a circular outer peripheral surface of a rack bar 16 and with a radius of curvature equal to the radius of curvature R0 of the same, and the remaining surface portions 27 to 29 formed in other positions than the sliding-contact surface portions 25, 26 so as to be more dented than the sliding-contact surface portions 25, 26.

Abstract: A rotary slide bearing part of a rotary slide slit bearing for supporting a rotary shaft thereon in a rotatable manner, has a first bearing surface portion adapted to be arranged adjacent to a second bearing surface portion of another rotary slide bearing part of the rotary slide slit bearing, a load from the shaft to be borne by the first bearing surface portion is larger than a load from the shaft to be borne by the second bearing surface portion, the first bearing surface portion includes a fluidal pressure generating surface facing close to the shaft to generate a fluidal pressure between the fluidal pressure generating surface and the shaft, a main groove arranged at an circumferential end of the first bearing surface portion adjacent to the second bearing surface portion, and a sub-groove extending from the main groove in a circumferential direction of the first bearing surface portion, and an axial width of the sub-groove is smaller than that of the main groove.

Abstract: There is disclosed a half thrust bearing of a substantially semi-circular shape. A thrust relieve 22, slanting toward a confronting end of the half thrust bearing progressively away from a bearing surface of a half thrust bearing, is formed at each of circumferentially-spaced opposite end portions of the bearing surface by pressing (cold forging), so that those portions of the bearing surface, disposed adjacent respectively to the thrust relieves 22, are higher in strength than the other portions of the bearing surface. With this construction, even if a thrust collar of a crankshaft abuts against localized portions of the bearing surface disposed adjacent to the thrust relieves 22, a bearing alloy will not subjected to premature fatigue and separation.

Abstract: A main-load side bearing metal piece on which a heavy load is imposed is coated on an inner surface thereof with a thin overlay having a uniform thickness. Meanwhile, a non-load side bearing metal piece is coated on an inner surface thereof with an overlay having a uniform thickness greater than that of the overlay formed on the inner surface of the main-load side bearing metal piece. With this construction, the bearing metal piece shows excellent load carrying capacity and fatigue resistance because the overlay formed on the inner surface thereof is thin, while the non-load side bearing metal piece shows excellent foreign matter embeddability and conformability because the overlay formed on the inner surface thereof is thick. Moreover, since there are formed the overlays each having a uniform thickness in respective inner surfaces of each of the bearing metal pieces, and therefore it is possible to reduce the manufacturing cost.