Radial Lumped-parameter Model of a Ball Bearing for Simulated Fault Signatures

In the literature, lumped-parameter models of ball bearing have been widely developed to provide vibration data for condition monitoring purposes. These are generic models which consider the contacts occurring between the two rings and all the balls in the bearing thanks to Hertzian contact stress theory. In this paper, a radial lumped-parameter model is developed on MATLAB/Simulink for a single ball in contact with the bearing races under a load distribution as a function of its angular position on the races. This simplified radial model identifies fault signatures in frequency domain for inner and outer ring defects. Afterward, the model is evaluated in contrast with the experimental data for OR faults provided by the Case Western Reserve University open-source dataset. The radial lumped- parameter model is able to reproduce the fault signatures for the same working conditions as the experimental data for OR defects of several geometries.