Load-Independent Power Losses of Fully Flooded Lubricated Tapered Roller Bearings: Numerical and Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Operating Temperature and Housing Wall Distances

To improve roller bearing efficiency, it is essential to identify the sources of power losses and quantify them in the design stage, considering different influencing factors. For oil-lubricated bearings, load-independent power losses (PLB0) can be the dominant source of dissipation, especially for high-speed and abundant lubrication. In the present work, PLB0 of a 32208 tapered roller bearing were measured experimentally under various operating conditions; that is, different rotational speeds, temperatures, and geometries of the oil reservoir. A numerical tool, based on computational fluid dynamics, to estimate PLB0 and provide useful insights to investigate their causes has been developed in the OpenFOAM® environment. Numerical and experimental results show excellent agreement in most of the operating conditions investigated. Oil flows, PLB0 contributions of different bearing components, and computational effort are discussed in the article.