Dynamic characteristics of ball bearing with flexible cage lintel and wear

•A ball bearing dynamic modeling considering the flexibility and wear of the cage.•Trajectory evolution of the cage.•The skidding ratio characteristics of the cage. In view of the practical problem of wear on the cage pocket, which is unavoidable during the operation of high-speed ball bearing, a dynamic model of high-speed ball bearing with flexible cage lintel was established considering the cage-pocket wear loss (BPWL), the gravity, drag force from the oil, and the hydrodynamic effect on the cage, and then, the dynamic simulations with different amounts of BPWL were obtained by solving the ball bearing dynamic equations using varying steps Runge-Kutta integration. The effect of the BPWL on the trajectory of the cage’s centroid and cage skidding ratio were obtained. The computational results show that the trajectory of the cage’s centroid presents two vibration modes with different amplitudes. And the two different forms of trajectories of different amplitudes emerge alternatively with BPWL increase. Moreover, the diameter of the trajectory decreases significantly with the BPWL increasing which is consistent with the experimental result. The change of the BPWL has little effect on the average skidding ratio of the cage; however, the fluctuation amplitude would become larger as BPWL increase. This study can provide important ideas for the design of bearing cage pocket size and the fault identification of the ball bearing.