Contact characteristic and vibration mechanism of rolling element bearing in the process of fault evolution

The vibration response of rolling element bearing has a close relation with its fault. An accurate evaluation of the bearing vibration response is essential to the bearing fault diagnosis. At present, most bearing dynamics models are built based on rigid assumptions, which may not faithfully reveal the dynamic characteristics of bearing in the presence of fault. Moreover, previous similar works mainly focus on the fault with a specified size without considering the varying contact characteristics as the fault evolves. This paper developed an explicit dynamics finite element model for the bearing with three types of raceway faults considering the flexibility of each bearing component in order to accurately study the contact characteristic and vibration mechanism of defective bearings in the process of fault evolution. The developed model is validated by comparing its simulation results with both analytical and experimental results. The dynamic contact patterns between the rolling elements and the fault, the additional displacement due to the fault and the faulty characteristics within the bearing vibration signal during the fault evolution process are investigated. The analysis results from this work can provide practitioners an in-depth understanding towards the internal contact characteristics with the existence of raceway fault and theoretical basis for rolling bearing fault diagnosis.