Vibration Response of Rolling Element Bearings in a Rotor Bearing System to a Local Defect Under Radial Load

In the present investigation, a theoretical model has been developed to obtain the vibration response due to a localized defect in various bearing elements in a rotor-bearing system under radial load conditions. The rotor-bearing system has been modeled as a three degrees-of-freedom system. The model predicts significant components at the harmonics of characteristic defect frequency for a defect on the particular bearing element. In the case of a defect on the inner race or a rolling element, the model predicts sidebands about the peaks at defect frequencies, at multiples of shaft and cage frequencies, respectively. The model has also predicted some additional components at harmonics of shaft and cage frequencies due to a local defect on the inner race and a rolling element, respectively. The expressions for all these spectral components have also been derived. Typical numerical results for an NJ 204 bearing have been obtained and plotted. The amplitude of the component at defect frequency, for an outer race defect, is found to be much higher as compared to those due to inner race defect or a rolling element defect of the same size and under similar conditions of load and speed. The results of vibration measurements on roller bearings with simulated local defects have also been presented to experimentally validate the theoretical model proposed. It can be observed from the results that the spectral components predicted by the theoretical model find significant presence in the experimental spectra. Comparison of the normalized analytical values of the spectral components with their experimental values shows fair agreement for most of the cases considered. Probable area of the generated excitation pulses has been calculated and the effects of pulse area variation on the experimental results have been studied.