An acoustic-structural model for pedestal-radiated noise during ball bearing angular acceleration

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to numerically investigate the noise characteristics of a pedestal during rolling element bearing angular acceleration while under radial load. A dynamic model was built for the calculation of excitation of the pedestal during angular acceleration, taking account of contact forces and friction forces between rolling elements and the races and skidding of rolling elements. The displacement of the outer race obtained from the dynamic model was then used in the pedestal finite element model and the vibration of the pedestal was obtained by performing transient dynamic analysis using ANSYS. The structural vibration acceleration of the pedestal was used as a boundary condition for the pedestal boundary element model and the sound pressure level was computed using LMS-SYSNOISE. Finally, the pedestal-radiated noise characteristics and how much the pedestal-radiated noise can be affected by design parameters, such as friction coefficient and radial load, was investigated. The proposed model and the results of the present paper could aid in the design of low-noise rolling element bearings and help solve the noise problem related to such bearings.