Modelling and Analysis of High-Speed Angular Contact Ball Bearing

Abstract

Angular contact bearings are of primal importance in accommodating rotational mechanisms with high-speed characteristics. Their applications are centric to heavy axial and radial loads sustaining thrust loads to a single direction. In high-speed applications, factors such as centrifugal force, gyroscopic moments and relative displacements in various geometric features of the bearings are to be taken into consideration. This study focuses on establishing the contact angles, contact forces and spin speed for angular contact bearing to withstand varied rotational angular velocities. The forces experience a non-linear variation with respect to the body stiffness thus necessitating the involvement of numerical methods to converge at precise solutions through each juncture. The outer raceway of the bearing is accepted to be static with respect to the inner raceway as the input shaft for any application is predominantly affixed to the inner raceway of the angular contact bearing. Geometrical variations are determined under combined load conditions to simulate the natural working of the bearing at accelerated speeds. The analyses involve results for spatial parameters which are iteratively solved for each of the rolling elements in the bearing taken into concern. The spin speeds of the rolling elements are shown to dampen and exponentially increase with respect to their angular positions. The outputs manifested through this work can be utilized to accurately predict shift of salient design attributes of an angular contact bearings through low and high-speed applications.