ENGINE BEARING FAILURES: Types of failure … Causes .. Prevention .. Copper‐Lead Bearings .. Cadmium Bearings

The frequent use of copper‐lead and cadmium alloy bearings for heavy duty diesel engine use has brought about a number of problems and a lot of troubles that occur with these bearings are frequently blamed on to the lubricating oil. The difficulty of differentiating between failures caused by fatigue and corrosion is a real one and quite apart from these two causes, there may be many contributory factors. A paper recently presented to the Society of Automobile Engineers at California by Mr. Stokely of the California Research Corporation on this subject has provided some valuable guidance on these matters. The following is a condensation of this paper.