Self aligning ball bearings have two rows of balls, a common sphered raceway in the outer ring and two deep uninterrupted raceway grooves in the inner ring. Self aligning ball bearings are insensitive to angular misalignment of the shaft relative to the housing, which can be caused, for example, by shaft deflection or housing deformations.

Designed to handle misalignment. MRC self-aligning bearings have two rows of balls with a common sphered raceway in the outer ring. This gives the bearings their self-aligning property, permitting angular misalignment of the shaft relative to the housing. They are therefore particularly suitable for applications where misalignment can arise from errors in mounting or from shaft deflection.In a self-aligning bearing, the inner ring has two raceways and the outer ring has a single spherical raceway with its center of curvature coincident with the bearing axis. This allows the axis of the inner ring, balls and cage to deflect around the bearing center to automatically correct misalignment caused by housing and shaft machining or installation error.