The 14th IFToMM World Congress, Taipei, Taiwan, October 25-30, 2015 DOI Number: 10.6567/IFToMM.14TH.WC.OS6.012 Analysis of Influence of External Load Variation of High Speed Ball Bearings on Cage Dynamic Performance Ye Zhenhuan1,2 Zunyi Normal College Zunyi, China Abstract: According to the geometry and force relationship of bearing elements, the dynamic model of high speed ball bearing was built. Integration method of Runge-Kutta and Newton-Raphson is proposed to efficiently solve the nonlinear equations. Computation program is developed and the cage stability in different bearing external loads is studied by taking type 7004 bearing as an example. It is shown that the increase of ratio of axial load to radial load makes both the cage stability and cage sliding ratio improved. In addition, the cage stability will reduce gradually during the loading process of radial load. Finally, accurateness of the dynamic model constructed in this paper was verified by the test and computation results of Gupta example. Keywords: High speed ball bearings, Dynamic, Cage stability, Loading process I. Introduction The dynamic performance of high-speed ball bearings not only affects its own life and stability, but also relates to the vibration and reliability of the rotor system. In order to understand the dynamic performance of the bearings during operation, a fully dynamic analysis of the bearings is needed. Over the years, many researchers pay them attentions to the dynamic analysis of high-speed ball bearings, and producing calculation procedures such as BRAIN, BEAST, and COBRA [1~3]. In particular, with regard to the force and motion analysis of cage, Gupta developed the influence of cage clearance [4] and the cage unbalance mass [5] on cage stability, while Weinzapfel et al. [6] also analyzed and compared the effects of rigid and flexible cage on cage stability. Targeting surface defects, Ashtekar et al. [7] analyzed the impact of pit size and location on the dynamic performance of the bearings. In addition, Bai [8] and Liu [9] also studied the dynamic characteristics of the bearings in terms of the waviness and cage clearance ratio of angular contact bearings. However, previous studies on high-speed ball bearings are limited to the basic dynamic performance analysis of different steady state conditions and have rarely ever investigated the dynamic properties of the bearing in the variable transition process. Frequent impact of the cage and the rolling elements during transmission operation directly affects the dynamic stability of the cage and ultimately influences the stability and reliability of machinery transmission system. In this paper, through the establishment of a dynamic analysis model and development of an efficient dynamics program, the effect of load changes of high-speed ball bearings on the dynamic performance of the cage was analyzed and discussed. The results support the improvement of the design computation and failure Wang Liqin2 Harbin Institute of Technology Harbin, China analysis of high-speed ball bearings. II. Dynamic Model of High-Speed Ball Bearings Study the high-speed ball bearings in the following assumptions while the geometry parameters and working conditions of the bearings are known. 1) The centroid and the geometry center of the bearing elements are overlapped. 2) All elements are rigid, without regard to flexible deformation. 3) Outer ring revolves around the center of the bearings. Inner ring revolves around its own centroid and also moves horizontally. Ball makes revolution around the center of the bearings, revolves on its own axis and also moves horizontally. Centroid of the cage moves horizontally and also revolves along its own axis. 4) The parameter of lubrication and its traction performance have been identified. A. Interaction Between Ball and Raceway The contact load Q between the raceways and the balls are calculated by the Hertz contact theory [10]. Thus, the contact load between the jth ball and the raceways is expressed as: Q j = K jδ j 3/2 (1) where the stiffness K is calculated according to the study by Johnson [10], and the contact deformation δ is determined by the positional relationship between the rolling element and the raceway as shown in Fig. 1. Thus, the contact deformation δj between the jth rolling element and the raceway is expressed by the vector OrjObj which means that the center of the raceway to the center of the ball, the groove curvature coefficient f of the ring, and the diameter of the ball Db are expressed as: δ j = ( f − 0.5) ⋅ Db − OrjObj Fig. 1 The sketch of the displacement of raceway and ball (2) The traction force Fμ of the contact area is equal to the traction coefficient μ multiplied the contact load Q. The traction coefficient formula [11] is: μ = ( A + Bs )e − Cs + D (3) that rotational speed of the element. Subscripts 1, 2, and c represent the outer ring, inner ring, and cage, respectively. The sign of the equations is negative while the cage with outer race guidance. where s is the slip-roll ratio which could be obtained from the kinematic analysis. Coefficients A, B, C, and D are calculated according to the formula in study by Wang [11]. B. Interaction Between Ball and Cage Pocket Fig. 2 shows the relative position relationship between the ball and the cage pocket. According to the vector OpjObj between the center of cage pocket and the center of the ball and the initial clearance between the cage pocket and the ball Δbp, the minimum clearance δbp can be expressed as follows: δ bh = Δ bh − OpjObj (4) ⎡ Fly ⎤ ⎡cos ϕ d ⎢ F ⎥ = ⎢ sin ϕ d ⎢ lz ⎥ ⎢ ⎢⎣ M l ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ 0 Fig. 2 The sketch of the displacement of the cage pocket and the ball According to the amplitude of the clearance between the cage pocket and the ball bearing δbp, taking into consideration both the roughness of the ball bearing εb and the cage εp, two interaction models are used. If the inequality δbp ≤ εb2 + ε p2 is true, the interaction is assumed to be Hertz contact. The load between the cage pocket and ball bearing is calculated by Hertz point contact theory [10]. Otherwise, if the inequality δbp > εb2 + ε p2 is true, the interaction is assumed to be hydrodynamic lubrication. Reynolds equations [12] are used to calculate the interaction force. C. Interaction Between Cage and Guiding Ring Fig. 3 shows the interaction between the cage and the guiding ring, and the force between the two can be approximated as the fluid dynamic pressure of the journal bearing. As the contact surface of the ring flange and cylinder surface of the cage is relatively small, the short journal bearings model [13] is adopted. WM = ± Wφ = ± Wρ = η RB 3 ε 2 Cg 2 (1 − ε 2 ) 2 πη RB3 4Cg 2 (ω1,2 + ωc ) ε (ω1,2 + ωc ) (1 − ε 2 )3/2 Fig. 3 The interaction between cage and guiding ring According to the interaction angle between the cage and the ring φd, the interaction force in the inertial coordination could be expressed as equation (6) through a coordination transformation. − sin ϕ d 0⎤ ⎡WM ⎤ ⎢ ⎥ 0⎥ ⎢ Wφ ⎥ ⎥ 1⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ Wρ ⎥⎦ cos ϕd 0 (6) D. Solution of Dynamic Model In addition to the interaction force, the bearing lubricant retarding force FD and retarding moments Me, which can be calculated by Schlichting’s fluid theory [14], should also be taken into consideration. Forces of the loaded rolling element are shown in Figure 4. In the figures, Mμ and Mbp are the traction moment between the raceway and the rolling element and friction moment between the cage and the rolling element, respectively. The motion equation of the jth rolling element centroid and of its revolving around the centroid is determined by its resultant force and the moment as shown in equation (7). Fμ j − FDj + Fbpjy = mb rbjθj M bpjx − M ejx + M μ jx = I bω xj (7) M bpjy − M ejy + M μ jy = I bω yj M bpjzx − M ejz + M μ jz = I bω zj Subscript j represents the parameter jth ball. Subscripts x, y, and z represent the components in each of the three directions. zb Fbpz Q1 Fz ob F Fbpx x zb M ex xb M ey yb F1μ ob F2 μ FD yb M ez Fbpy Fy ob xb Fbpx Q2 (5) 2πη R3 B 1 (ω1,2 − ωc ) Cg 1− ε 2 where WM, WΦ, and Wρ are the normal force, tangential force, and moment between the cage and the guiding ring. η is the viscosity of the oil. Rg and Bg are the radius and the width of the guiding surface. Cg is initial clearance of the bearings. ε is the eccentricity ratio of the cage center. ω is Fig. 4 Forces and moments acting on ball To eliminate high-frequency vibrations generated by contact between a ball bearing and rings, a balance constraint is adopted for the contact between the ball and the ring. First, nonlinear equilibrium equations with the quasi-dynamic method are established, and then the Newton-Raphson method is used to solve the equations [15]. Similarly, based on the force condition, the differential equations of the cage can be listed as follows: n ∑ (− F bpjx j =1 ) = mc xc Elements Density [kg/m3] Ball Rings Cage 3200 7750 1500 Elastic modulus [GPa] 310 200 1.73 n Fly + ∑ (− Fbpjy ⋅ cos θ j − Fbpjz ⋅ sin θ j ) = mc yc j =1 n Flz + ∑ (− Fbpjy ⋅ sin θ j − Fbpjz ⋅ cos θ j ) = mc zc (8) j =1 TABLE 2. Material parameters of ball bearings [4] Dc ⎞ ⎛ ∑ ⎜ − Fbpjy ⋅ ⎟ + M l = I cθ c 2 ⎠ ⎝ j =1 n A. Based on simultaneous motion differential equations of the ball bearing and cage, one should use non-dimensional quantities to the parameters of the equation in formula (9), and resolve the non-dimensional differential equations with the adaptive step size 4th order Runge-Kutta method. A stationary solution is obtained by the quasi-dynamic method as the initial values of whole solution process. The calculation procedure is shown in Fig. 5. F= F Fx m= m mb r= r Db / 2 t= Poisson's ratio [-] 0.260 0.250 0.300 t mb ⋅ Db / (2 Fx ) Effect of Bearing Load on Cage Stability A1. Effect of axial load on cage stability on steady conditions Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 show the cage whirl track and deviation-ratio of cage whirl speed on different axial loads with radial load 400 N. Where, the whirl track indicates dimensionless displacement, which is defined as the ratio of actual displacement of cage mass to the guiding clearance of cage. And the deviation-ratio of cage whirl speed is used to evaluate the cage stability according to Ghaisas's definition [16] as follows: (9) n σ= ∑ (v − v i =1 i m ) 2 / (n − 1) (10) vm It can be seen that cage whirl track become regular gradually with the increase of the axial load. Meanwhile, deviation ratio of cage whirl speed decreases when the axial load rises. Therefore, it can be concluded that cage stability could be improved by increase the axial load when the ball bearings in steady condition. Fig. 5 Calculation flow chart of dynamic equations III. Results and Discussions Based on the dynamic model of high-speed ball bearings, the effect of changes in the load on the dynamic performance of the bearing is studied with the example of 7004 angular contact ball bearings (MIL-L-7808 lubricants are used). Geometry and material parameters are shown in Table 1 and Table 2. The velocity of inner ring is 120000 r/min, and axial load and radial load are 2000 N and 400 N, respectively. Geometry parameter Pitch diameter Ball diameter No. of balls Contact angle Inner curvature factor Outer curvature factor Cage inner diameter Cage outer diameter Cage pocket clearance Cage guiding clearance u.m. mm mm ° mm mm mm mm Value 31 8 6 24 0.56 0.52 30 35 0.1 0.25 TABLE 1. Geometry parameters of ball bearings [4] Fig. 6 Cage whirl motion on different axial loads (radial load: 400 N) Fig. 7 Stability of cage on different axial load (radial load: 400 N) The reason is that the traction interaction between ball and raceway is improved with the raising of the axial load, and then the fluctuation of ball speed decreases (rotation speed of ball on different axial load are shown in Fig.8). With the fluctuation of ball speed decreases, the random collision between cage pocket and ball becomes weaker (Fig.9 show the spectrum of the cage pocket/ball impact on different axial loads), meanwhile the guiding function between ring and cage enhanced (Fig.10 show the spectrum of the cage pocket/ball impact on different axial loads). critical load which makes high speed ball bearing not skidded. Based on the Cui's evaluate method [17], the critical load is about 1500 N according to the cage sliding ratio on different axial loads shown in Fig. 11. Fig. 11 Effect of axial loads on cage sliding ratio (radial load: 400 N) Fig. 8 Effect of axial loads on ball speed (radial load: 400 N) A2. Effect of radial load on cage stability on steady conditions Fig. 12 and Fig. 13 show the cage whirl track and deviation-ratio of cage whirl speed under different radial loads with axial load 2000 N. It can be seen that the cage whirl track gradually ranges from approximately circular to an irregular whirl in a small area as the radial load increases. Meanwhile, the deviation ratio of cage whirl speed increases when the radial load rises. According to the cage whirl track and the deviation ratio of cage whirl speed based on Ghaisas's evaluate method [16], it can be concluded that cage stability could be improved by decreasing the radial load when the ball bearings are in steady condition. Fig. 9 Spectrum of the cage pocket/ball force on different axial loads (radial load: 400 N) Fig. 12 Cage whirl motion on different radial loads (axial load: 2000 N) Fig. 10 Spectrum of the cage/guiding ring force on different axial loads (radial load: 400 N) In addition, it can be seen from Fig.7 that there are minor difference between deviation-ratio of cage whirl speed for low level while axial loads greater than 2000 N. The reason is that axial loads play limited role in ball speed fluctuation when the axial load greater than Fig. 13 Stability of cage on different radial load (axial load: 2000 N) In addition, the Poincarè sections of the cage mass center vibrations on the radial plane under different radial loads are shown in Fig.14. There are four point-groups on the figures of the Poincarè section while the radial loads are 400 N, 1000 N and 1500 N. In those cases, the cage mass center motions exist as periodic vibrations with narrow frequency band noise, and the vibration period is the four times of the rotation period of inner ring. When the radial load was increased to 2000 N, the Poincarè section of the cage mass center vibration became a series of disordered points, indicating the vibration of cage mass center was chaos. Fig. 16 Effect of radial loads on cage sliding ratio (axial load: 2000 N) B. Fig. 14 The Poincarè section of cage vibration on different radial loads (axial load: 2000 N) In this case, the load distribution of rolling elements became gradually uneven as the radial load of the bearings increased. Uneven load distribution led to a difference in the traction force between the rolling elements and rings, which made the rotation speed of the rolling elements appear to fluctuate, while the rolling elements rotated to a different azimuth. The significant fluctuation of rolling elements increased the impact between the rolling element and the cage pocket, decreasing cage stability. Fig. 15 shows the load distribution and rotation speed distribution of rolling elements working under the different radial loads. Effect of Loading Process on Cage Stability Bearing loading process is a transient motion stage while the bearing ranges from normal working condition to limit working condition. According to the analysis results in the last section, it is clear that the effect of axial load and radial load on cage stability is different, so the loading process of axial load and loading process of radial load should be treated differently in terms of their impact on the cage stability. B1. Cage stability in loading process of axial load Fig. 17 shows the cage rotation speed and cage sliding ratio when the axial load of bearings ranges from 2000 N ~ 2500 N with the loading speed 5000 N/s. As the figure shows, in the whole loading process of axial load, the cage rotation speed decrease gradually but the cage sliding ratio has no obviously change. The main reasons is that distribution of all of the contact angle between ball and raceway become even with the increase of axial load, and the maximum contact angle in the inner loading zone of bearings decreases gradually which result in the both theoretical rotation speed and actual rotation speed of cage decrease. Fig. 17 Cage speed and sliding ratio in the bearing loading process of axial load Fig. 15 Effect of radial load on loads and revolution speeds of ball (axial load: 2000 N) In addition, the cage-sliding ratio decreased as the radial load increased. Fig. 16 shows the cage sliding ratio with different radial loads and the critical radial load based on Cui's evaluate method [17]. Thus, it is possible to decrease the cage sliding ratio and improve cage stability through increase the ratio of the axial load to radial load when the bearings worked under steady conditions. Fig. 18 shows the cage whirl track and the ratio of cage whirl speed to rotation speed during the loading process of axial load. At the onset of the loading process, the cage whirl track is disorder and the whirl speed ratio presents accelerated raise. And then, cage whirl track becomes regular gradually and the whirl speed ratio presents a steady fluctuation state. It can be concluded that the loading process of axial load will affect the cage stability in a certain extent but not lead to the cage lose stability. Fig. 21 shows the cage whirl track and the ratio of cage whirl speed to rotation speed during the loading process of radial load. It can be seen from the figure that the radius of cage whirl track decreases gradually with the increase of radial load, and then the cage whirl track focus on a small certain region. Combine with the cage whirl speed ratio, it can be concluded that the cage stability reduces gradually during the loading process of radial load. Fig. 18 Cage whirl motion and speed ratio in the bearing loading process of axial load Fig. 19 shows the time response and frequency spectrum of the cage force during the bearing loading process of axial load. As can be seen from Figure 19 b) and d), both the frequency spectrums of the force between cage and ball and the force between cage and guiding ring are exist broadband noise, it means cage bears many random impact force which will affect the motion stability of cage mass center. Meanwhile, apart from the broadband noise in the frequency spectrums, the interaction between cage and guiding ring presents the characteristic of single-cycle vibration which means that the cage not lose stability. The interaction between cage pocket and ball presents the characteristics of double-cycle vibration. Fig. 21 Cage whirl motion and speed ratio in the bearing loading process of radial load Fig. 22 shows the time response and frequency spectrum of the cage force during the bearing loading process of radial load. As can be seen from Figure 22 b) and d), both the frequency spectrums of the force between cage and ball and the force between cage and guiding ring are exist obviously broadband noise, compare with the loading process of axial load, there is more influence on the motion stability of cage mass center during the loading process of radial load. Meanwhile, apart from the broadband noise in the frequency spectrums, the interaction between cage and guiding ring also presents the characteristic of single-cycle vibration. The interaction between cage pocket and ball presents the characteristics of multi-cycle vibration. Fig. 19 Load vibration response of cage in the bearing loading process of axial load B2. Cage stability in loading process of radial load Fig. 20 shows the cage rotation speed and cage sliding ratio when the radial load of bearings ranges from 400 N ~ 900 N with the loading speed 5000 N/s. As the figure shows, in the whole loading process of radial load, the cage rotation speed is basically stable but the cage sliding ratio increases gradually. The main reasons is that distribution of all of the contact angle between ball and raceway become uneven with the increase of radial load which makes the cage theoretical rotation speed increased. Fig. 20 Cage speed and sliding ratio in the bearing loading process of radial load Fig. 22 Load vibration response of cage in the bearing loading process of radial load IV. Model Validations Taking a certain type of angular contact ball bearings as used in Gupta’s experiment, the reliability verification on the bearing dynamic model is carried out. The axial load of the bearing is 4448 N, the working velocity is 20000 r/min, and other specific parameters are those used in the reference [18]. Fig. 23 shows the results of the cage mass center orbit simulated by Gupta's experimental and theoretical work. Fig. 24 shows the results of the cage mass center orbit and the ratio of the cage epicycle speed and bearing speed simulated in this study. It can be seen that there is good agreement between the shape of the experimental orbit and the theoretical prediction. In addition, according to the ratio of cage epicycle speed and bearing speed simulated in this study, the range of the cage speed ratio is 0.4-0.65 when the cage whirl tends to be stable. Also, the range of the cage speed ratio determined by Gupta's experiment and theory are 0.37-0.50 and 0.31-0.35, respectively [18]. It can be seen that errors exist between the experimental work and theoretical work on the ratio of the cage epicycle speed and bearing speed, but the errors are in the acceptable range. the cage stability during the loading process of axial load while the cage stability reduces gradually during the loading process of radial load. But no matter the axial loading process or radial loading process, the interaction between cage and guiding ring always present the characteristics of single-cycle vibration, and the interaction between cage pocket and ball always present the characteristics of multi-cycle vibration. Acknowledgements The work has received support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51375108),Science and Technology Foundation of GuiZhou Province of China (Qian Ke He J Zi [2014]2172), Natural Science Research Project of Education Department of GuiZhou Province of China (Qian Jiao He KY Zi [2014]294) and Doctoral Research Foundation of Zunyi Normal College (2013BJ06). References Fig. 23 Cage mass center orbit determined by Gupta [18] Fig. 24 Cage mass center orbit and cage speed ratio predicted in this study According to the comparison results, it can be concluded that the ball bearing dynamic model developed by this paper is reliable, and this model can be used to simulate the cage instability. V. Conclusions In this paper, the dynamics analysis model of the high-speed ball bearings is established based on the interaction among the bearing elements. The hybrid of Runge-Kutta and Newtown-Raphson’s method is adopted to achieve high efficiency for solving nonlinear equations. And the effects of load changes on the stability of the dynamic performance of high-speed ball bearings are analyzed, with the following conclusions: (1) Bearing loads have obviously influence on the cage sliding ratio and cage stability with the bearings under steady conditions. As the axial loads increased and the radial loads decreased, the cage sliding ratio decreased and the cage stability increased. Thus, it is necessary to control the ratio of the radial load to the axial load to ensure cage stability as well as the sliding ratio when the ball bearings worked under steady conditions. (2) Cage dynamic characteristics which presents in the loading process of axial load and the loading process of radial load are different. There is no obviously influence on [1] Aramaki H. Rolling Bearing Analysis Program Package “BRAIN”. Motion & Control, 3:15-24, 1997. 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