An Efficient Modeling Method for the Simulation of Ball Bearing Dynamics

Abstract Efficiency and accuracy play an important role in numerical simulation for ball bearings dynamics. In this work, three kinds of contact models are developed in vector form to represent the interactions in ball/raceway, ball/cage, and cage/raceway. Considering the fluctuation induced by friction and divergence by damping force in ball bearings, the dynamic computational methods based on the modifications in the formulation of friction and acceleration are proposed. Then the simplified ball bearing system is simulated by fixed and variable step integration methods. The comparison of results from both solutions and applied step size has indicated the validity and higher efficiency of the proposed methods. Furthermore, a full dynamics simulation of a 100 angular-contact ball bearing is conducted. Results show that the proposed models and methods have satisfactory stability and accuracy under a considerably long simulation time step.