Fatigue life analysis of cylindrical roller bearings considering piezoviscous-rigid and elastohydrodynamic lubrication regimes

HOU Hui-peng, WU Bing, NIU Lin-kai, LI Guo-yan, LAN Yuan
(College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China)

Abstract: Aiming at fatigue life of a bearing largely affects the safety of the whole machine system,a new fatigue life calculation model for cylindrical roller bearings considering the piezoviscousrigid and the elastohydrodynamic lubrication regimes was proposed. A quasistatic model for cylindrical roller bearing was proposed by establishing the balance equation of oil film thickness, geometrical interaction and elastic deformation for rollers and races, the force balance equations of rollers and the force balance equation of race. In the proposed quasistatic model, the lubrication regime (PVR and EHD) was checked to calculate oil film thickness. The fatigue life was analyzed based on the proposed quasistatic model and the LundergPalmgren theory. The results indicate that the fatigue life decreases with the increase of the radial load, while the effects of the rotation speed and the initial viscosity of lubricant on the fatigue life are nonlinear. In addition, the influences of PVR and EHD lubrication regimes should be paid more attention when the load is smaller, the rotation speed is larger, and the initial viscosity of lubricant is smaller or larger.
Key words: cylindrical roller bearing; fatigue life; piezoviscousrigid（PVR）lubrication regime; elastohydrodynamic（EHD）lubrication regime; quasistatic model