Analysis of Radial Roller Bearing Rating Life in Complex Loading Conditions

Abstract

An approach for accurate life analysis of radial roller bearings in complex loading conditions is presented. It employs ISO 16281 and accounts not only for external radial loads applied to the inner ring but also for (i) internal bearing clearance, (ii) flexibility of the bearing rings, (iii) rings out-of-roundness, (iv) inertia effects, (v) rolling elements profile, and (vi) rings misalignment. In the last decades, these factors have been becoming more and more important for modern high-performance jet engines, whose shafts are commonly hollow and the housing and the rings thicknesses may be of comparable magnitudes. To obtain the distribution of internal contact forces, an advanced static model of a bearing with deformable, potentially misaligned, rings is developed. The bending deformations of the rings are reproduced superimposing deformed shapes from each of the arising internal contact force applied individually. Bearing rollers are allowed to have non-cylindrical profile, and its geometry is approximated by means of slices each having constant diameter. A robust numerical scheme for solving the resultant set of equations with the aid of the barrier functions method is constructed. To increase even further the accuracy of rating life analysis, distributions of the contact stresses between the roller and the ring surfaces, obtained by solving numerically the problem of non-Hertzian interaction, are added to computations. A numerical benchmark test is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the developed approach. It shows how the aforementioned factors influence the bearing contact forces and its rating life.