Spherical roller bearings have a barrel-shaped rolling element. Spherical rollers are placed between the inner and outer rings. The raceways of the bearing are contoured to match the spherical surface of the rollers. This allows the caged roller assembly to “pivot” within the raceways, thus allowing the spherical roller bearing to be relatively “self-aligning” when shafts supported by the bearing are misaligned with respect to the axis of the bearing. These bearings withstand not only radial loads but thrust loads in both directions. They are widely used in industrial machinery due to their ability to resist heavy and shock loads.