Reduction of NRRO in ball bearings for HDD spindle motors

In this paper, it is theoretically and experimentally analyzed that the non-repetitive run-out (NRRO) of a ball bearing is caused by geometrical errors of the inner and outer races and the balls, and the number of balls. The results are summarized as follows: (1) As for the geometrical errors of the inner and outer races, it is possible to reduce the NRRO to be less than 1 nm by choosing 12 or 18 number of balls, even if the inner and outer races have a harmonic undulation of less than the 11th order. (2) The NRRO of a ball bearing with 12 balls is very small even if the geometrical errors of ball bearing parts are large. It was confirmed that 12 was an optimal number of balls for ball bearings used for HDD spindle motors.