Counterfeit Bearings：The Eight Symptoms of Identification
Bearings are essential components in many industries and technical applications, such as power transmission and generation, transportation, medical consumables, aviation engineering, and even traditional industries such as clocks and watches. As a result of its wide range application, counterfeit bearings gradually become a problem that needs to be solved urgently. Counterfeit bearings destabilize production machineries and can harm customer’s health and safety. With a global intensified awareness of counterfeit bearings and brand protection, it is of increasing importance to distinguish fake from real bearings.
Nowadays, some countries put restrictions for the purchase and utilization of counterfeit bearings. The consequences for using such bearings are not only financial losses, but also imminent risks of accidents. As a result, it may cost both time and money for quality checking, removing and replacing the counterfeit parts, but still the safety cannot be guaranteed or certified.
In order to identify counterfeit bearings you could use the Eight Symptoms as a guide for authentication, including: 1) Appearance; 2) Strucutre; 3) Overall Weight ; 4) Material and Metallurgical Properties; 5) Rolling Elements; 6) Cage and Retainers; 7) Coating; 8) Tolerance and Precision.
Appearance: The surface of the bearing should looks like it was made to production standards. Some counterfeit bearings can visually show some unnatural looking elements, including extra burrs, odd size marks, extra holes and odd color of paint.
Structure: Most of the bearings will have unique structures that are different from the counterfeit and knock-off bearings.
Overall weight: Counterfeit bearings and components can usually be heavier than their original versions. In addition to heavier overall weight, the counterfeit parts also have heavier components, such as cages, seals, and end covers.
Material and metallurgical properties: Original bearings are manufactured from high quality and durable materials, while counterfeit bearings may contain low quality material, such as low grade alloy steel or stainless steel, which may be more brittle and wears off easily.
Rolling elements: The production of counterfeit bearings requires less complicated and less expensive process and therefore, the quality of the material used and the rolling elements is much lower than that of the original bearings.
Cage and retainers: This is an easy and quick way to identify counterfeit bearings. Most counterfeit bearings will have different shaped parts, especially cages and retainers which are made from bad quality plastic materials.
Coating: The coating of counterfeit bearings is usually of a lower quality than the original bearings and may contain pitting marks and deep scratches.
Tolerance and precision: Fake bearings might have loose or no tolerances and produce inaccurate rotation speed.
In summary, the quality of a bearing has a significant impact on the performance of machines, the safety of a product and the life cycle of production. Therefore, the Eight Symptoms are suggested to assist with identification of counterfeit bearings. If any signs which match these symptoms are found then, it is reasonable to assume the bearing is of low quality and not produced to standard.
