Ball bearings are normally used in a mechanical setup to reduce friction between objects. Ball bearings are the most common type of bearing and they are used in everything from inline skates to computer hard drives and the most common usage of ball bearings throughout the world is in the bicycle. Ball bearings are used in many walks of life and industry is just one of them as they are used in a wide array of industrial applications.

Ball bearings are normally made of steel or nickel and most ball bearings are available in a single row design. Ball bearings are relatively easier to make than other rolling substances and can support a high degree of axial and radial pressures. Ball bearings are available in some common designs such as: radial balls, angular contact balls, axial balls and slot-filled ball bearings.

Ball bearings are manufactured to extremely fine tolerances, so of course the contact area between two ball bearings is vanishingly small. Ball bearings are used for high precision applications in a variety of markets, including aerospace, agriculture, construction, health, machine tool and general industry. Ball bearings are very efficient and since they are sealed, they do not require any maintenance. Deep groove ball bearings are economical are the most widely used bearing type. Deep grove ball bearings are non separable self-alignment capacity is limited. New ball bearings are less than a dollar, clamps are inexpensive when purchased in the thousands as are boots. These large ball bearings are about 2 inches in diameter, and a pair of them weight over a kilo.