A wire race bearing is a rolling-element bearing, where the balls or rollers run on races resembling loops of wire. Roller bearings may use just two races, but ball bearings typically use three or four races. Wire race bearings can be large yet lightweight and with small profile and good precision. Wire races have little intrinsic structure and must be adequately supported by the bearing housing. Balls, rollers or even cross rollers are used as rolling elements. Due to the design wire race bearings are commonly called '4-point-contact' bearings.
The first wire race bearing was invented in 1934 by Erich Franke, co-founder of Franke & Heydrich KG in Aalen, Germany (nowadays Franke GmbH). As a young design engineer of Carl-Zeiss-Werke in Jena, Franke intended to design a very space-saving bearing for an optical device. The aim of his thoughts was a much closer relation between bearing and enclosing design to keep it as compact and as lightweight as possible.
Read more about Wire Race Bearing: Types, Comparison With Standard Ball Bearings, Applications, Wire Race Bearing Manufacturers
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