Da Vinci’s work on ball and roller bearings was hugely useful in helping him to design other larger inventions. With his knowledge of the advantages of bearing use and design of to improve their implementation he was able to create many other novel inventions which would not have been possible if only sliding contacts were used.

For example, both da Vinci’s self-propelled cart as well as his armored car (tank) would not have been possible without bearings. In his armored car, there were a number of cannons mounted to a circular platform that could rotate 360 degrees. The rotation of a large and heavy platform could only be made possible via the use of rolling element bearings. Similarly, his sketches of a self-propelled cart relied heavily on bearings. In 2006 when scholars built a model of the cart based on his sketches, it was able to work. Again, this was enabled by ball bearings.

Many others of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions made use of bearings as well. Almost every design that included two contacting elements moving relative to each other was improved and made more possible thanks to improvements in bearing design via race ways and cages as well as lubrication. Designs such as da Vinci’s flying machine, while not feasible due to weight to lift ratio limitations, was still improved via the incorporation of bearings. His robotic knight, like many modern robots, contained several moving parts who’s motion was made easier and less resource intensive due to bearings.

Today the uses of bearings are limitless. They can be found in simple toys such as fidget spinners as well as complex, high speed manufacturing lines and autonomous robots.

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Image: http://www.leonardodavincisinventions.com/war-machines/leonardo-da-vinci...