A comparative study of surface waviness models for predicting vibrations of a ball bearing

Surface waviness models utilized to describe the excitation events in the ball bearings (BABs) play an important role in predicting the vibrations of the ball bearing systems. This work proposes a comparative study on the most relevant existing surface waviness models. One model is named as time-varying displacement (TVD) model, which can only describe the time-varying displacement excitation (TDIE). Another model is named as TVDS model, which can describe the TDIE and time-varying contact stiffness coefficient excitation (TCSE). The influences of the wave number, maximum amplitude, nonuniform distribution on the contact stiffness coefficients are studied, as well as vibrations of the BAB. The comparative results demonstrate that the time-varying displacement and stiffness (TVDS) model can provide a more accurate impulses caused by the uniform and nonuniform surface waviness on the races of the BABs. It also seems that the surface waviness distribution has a significantly influence on vibrations of the BABs.