Numerical investigation of the oil–air distribution inside ball bearings with under-race lubrication

Le Jiang, Yaguo Lyu, Wenjun Gao, Pengfei Zhu, Zhenxia Liu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

Oil distribution inside the under-race lubricated bearing is crucial for lubrication and cooling of high-speed ball bearings. An under-race lubricated ball bearing is modeled to numerically investigate the effects of operating parameters and feed hole configuration on the distribution behavior of lubricant oil. The results of the numerical simulation indicate that the average oil volume fraction changes with a convex trend as the outer race rotating speed increases, while it changes monotonically with the inner race rotating speed, oil volume flow rate, and oil temperature. The extent of oil spreading on the outer race, cage, ball, and inner race decreases successively. Optimizing the feed hole configuration according to the average oil volume fraction is helpful to achieve precise lubrication of the under-race lubricated ball bearing.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)499-513
Number of pages15
JournalProceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part J: Journal of Engineering Tribology
Volume236
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2022

Keywords

  • Ball bearings
  • oil distribution
  • two-phase flow
  • under-race lubrication

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