Vibration characteristics of a high-speed flexible angular contact ball bearing with the manufacturing error

Abstract

Angular contact ball bearings (ACBBs) are key basic components of mechanical transmission systems. Vibration characteristics of ACBBs have significant effect on the bearing performances, which can also affect the precision, reliability, and service life of mechanical transmission systems. While the manufacturing errors occur on the components of ACBB, the internal bearing load will generate the sideband frequencies and undesired peaks in the vibration signals due to the waviness excitations. Then, the vibrations of ACBB should be changed. To obtain the vibrations of a high-speed flexible ACBB, a dynamic model is presented, in which the lubrication and flexible rings are considered. To study the influences of manufacturing errors on the vibrations of high-speed flexible ACBB, the waviness amplitude and order are also considered in this model. To validate the proposed model, an experiment is carried out. The results show that the waviness amplitude and order can greatly affect the vibrations of high-speed flexible ACBB. The vibrations of flexible ring cases are larger than those of rigid ring cases. Note that the peak-to-peak (PTP) values of two rings increase with the increment of waviness amplitude. The waviness order can also affect the characteristic frequencies of ring accelerations.