Investigation on contact and power loss characteristics of cylindrical roller bearing under bending moment

In practice, the bending moment for bearings is inevitable and affects the contact and power loss characteristics. However, research comprehensively analyzing the effect of bending moment on cylindrical roller bearings (CRB) is rarely reported. To address this research gap, this study improves the quasi-dynamic model of CRBs in three aspects and analyzes the effect of the bending moment, bearing clearance, and roughness on the contact, slip, and power loss characteristics based on it. The improved model can adaptively identify the azimuth of contact points based on the tangent plane vector, which corrects the wrong approach relation between non-overlapping surface curvatures caused by the traditional fixed point assumption under askew contact; a compatibility equation is proposed between the relative position of contact points, deformation, and oil film thickness to couple lubrication during calculating contact load; adding the artificial viscosity to the difference scheme representing the inertia term of rollers solves the numerical oscillation of speed caused by the shock wave. The improved model is confirmed experimentally. The simulation results show as the bending moment increases, the contact region between rollers and raceways decreases, and the contact pressure and von Mises stress increase, thereby reducing the slip rate. Reduced contact region means reducing power losses caused by contact. The bearing clearance has similar effects. To reduce power losses, the bending moment and bearing clearance should be appropriately increased. The research results can effectively guide the optimization design of CRBs.