Research on the rolling contact fatigue life of the bearing considering the friction effect

In this paper, a theoretical model is proposed to analyze the friction effect on the rolling contact fatigue (RCF) life of the angular contact ball bearing (ACBB). Firstly, the quasi-static model without race control hypothesis is introduced to study the load characteristics of the ACBB under different loading conditions. Then, the friction coefficient is quantitatively calculated by analyzing the relation between the gyroscopic torque and the sphere-race contact load. The effects of the axial load, radial load, torque load and rotating speeds on the friction coefficient, the maximum value of the sub-surface von Mises stress (SSVS) and the maximum peak-peak value of the sub-surface shear stress (SSSS) are subsequently investigated. The results show that they can significantly affect the friction coefficient and further influence the stress field beneath the contact surface. Further studies illustrate that the friction coefficient cannot affect the maximum peak-peak value of the SSSS but can change the distribution of the SSVS field. The relative RCF life of the sphere-race contact is calculated and the published studies confirm the accuracy of the calculation.