Effect of silicon nitride balls and rollers on rolling bearing life

Erwin V. Zaretsky, Brian L. Vlcek, Robert C. Hendricks

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Three decades have passed since the introduction of silicon nitride rollers and balls into conventional rolling-element bearings. For a given applied load, the contact (Hertz) stress in a hybrid bearing will be higher than that of an all-steel rolling-element bearing. The silicon nitride rolling-element life as well as the lives of the steel races were used to determine the resultant bearing life of both hybrid and all-steel bearings. Life factors were determined and reported for hybrid bearings. Under nominal operating speeds, the resultant calculated lives of the deep-groove, angular-contact, and cylindrical roller hybrid bearings with races made of post-1960 bearing steel increased by factors of 3.7, 3.2, and 5.5, respectively, from those calculated using the Lundberg-Palmgren equations. An all-steel bearing under the same load will have a longer life than the equivalent hybrid bearing under the same conditions. Under these conditions, hybrid bearings are predicted to have a lower fatigue life than all-steel bearings by 58 % for deep-groove bearings, 41 % for angular-contact bearings, and 28% for cylindrical roller bearings.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)425-435
Number of pages11
JournalTribology Transactions
Volume48
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2005

Keywords

  • Bearing life prediction
  • Hybrid rolling bearings
  • Rolling-element bearings
  • Silicon nitride rolling elements

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