Loss of lubricant from oil-lubricated near-starved spherical roller bearings

The time to lubricant film breakthrough in an oil-lubricated spherical roller bearing has been measured using SKF Lubcheck for various settings of bearing load, outer ring temperature, shaft speed and oil type and viscosity. The bearings were lubricated once and then run to film breakthrough with the aim of estimating the lubricant losses under different conditions. The result of the experiments supports the theory of lubricant replenishment, and it is shown that high speed combined with high lubricant viscosity will shorten the time to film breakthrough.