The Influence of Local Slip in Hertzian Contacts on the Subsurface Elastic Material Stresses of Rolling Element Components

Abstract

AbstractRolling element bearing components are subjected to high loads. These loads are transmitted from one bearing component to the next through Hertzian contacts. Since the bearing components are in motion as they transmit load, the elliptical contact region is subjected to normal as well as tangential pressure. The direction of the tangential pressure distribution is dependant on the direction of the local slip vectors at each point within the elliptical contact. The purpose of the work presented here, is to study the influence of the local slip vectors in highly loaded elliptical Hertzian contacts. Instead of applying the conventional method of using a constant traction coefficient within the contact region, the author, for the first time, employs a variable traction coefficient depending on the local slip velocity. The paper points out the importance of including traction‐slip relationships in material stress analysis to obtain realistic stress distributions of rolling element bearing components, especially in the mixed lubrication region.