Axial needle roller and cage assemblies

A combination of axial needle roller cage assemblies and the appropriate axial bearing washers is known as an axial needle bearing.
Its main component (the axial needle roller cage assembly) consists of a dimensionally-stable cage. Since this holds and guides a large number of needle rollers, axial needle bearings can withstand high axial loadings and also form impact-insensitive bearings.
Axial needle bearings have an extremely low space requirement and therefore enable extremely stiff bearings.
If the appropriate locations on the adjacent machine components have been designed as raceways (i.e. hardened and polished) then axial needle roller cage assemblies can be used. If this is not the case, axial bearing washers are necessary.