Project Report Finite Element Method and Applications / MIE 605 Spring 2002

FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF VIBRATIONS CAUSED BY A DEFECT IN THE OUTER RING OF A BALL BEARING

Arnaz S. Malhi Research Assistant Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department

University of Massachusetts Amherst ELAB 202 Ph: 413-577-0093 e-mail: amalhi@ecs.umass.edu

Abstract Rolling element bearings are important to nearly all forms of machinery. Fault diagnosis for rolling element bearings has traditionally been done using vibration analysis by identifying characteristic fault frequencies in the spectrum. This work has been done to complement the bearing fault diagnosis process. A preliminary vibration analysis of a rolling element passing over a single point defect on the outer ring of a ball bearing using FEA software ANSYS has been done. Vibration signals for two different defect sizes have been extracted and an index for comparison of different defect sizes has been proposed.

particular, for rolling element bearings, vibration analysis has been used as a diagnostic tool to estimate the presence of a fault and its severity. Due to the rotations of bearings in use, bearing failures can be detected from the characteristic defect frequencies that are generated due to the interaction of the defect with a rolling element. Such frequencies can be calculated analytically, and they differ for defects present on the outer or inner raceway of the bearing. 2. Problem description

Nomenclature : the maximum load on a rolling element qmax n

2?

:exponent dependent on the type of bearings : included angle of the loading zone : load distribution factor : radial force on the bearing : contact angle of a rolling element : number of rolling elements in the bearing

In this project, a preliminary vibration analysis of a rolling element passing over a defect on the outer ring of a deep groove ball bearing has been studied. It is proposed that the severity of the defect of a bearing (typically, the area of the defect) can be estimated from the vibration signal. The defect vibration signatures tend to vary for different types of defects. An example of a inner raceway defect spectrum is shown in Figure 1.

Fr ?? Z

1. Introduction Rolling element bearings are a very important part of nearly all forms of machinery. Because of their widespread use and importance, their failure is most often the cause of machinery breakdown. Hence it is important to monitor the health of the bearing so that the bearing can be replaced before it fails completely. Condition based Monitoring (CBM) is such a maintenance strategy which seeks to continuously monitor machinery and equipment to maximize their availability. In

Defect freq.

Harmonics

Fig. 1 Vibration spectrum for a inner raceway defect

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In normal operation, the load of the bearing is supported by all the rolling elements in the load zone of the bearing. The distribution of the load in the loading zone is given by [1]:
n ? 1 ? ? 1 ? cos? ?? , for ? ? l ? ? ? ? ? q max ?1 ? ? q(? ) ? ? ? 2? ? ? 0, elsewhere ? l

(1)

Such a variation of forces would affect the vibration signal and would be captured by an accelerometer placed on the bearing. Typically the decrease in the force by a value f would be dependent on the depth of the defect and the time for which the value of the force would stay at that value would be dependent on the width of the defect. 3. ANSYS Application 3.1 Model generation The first step was modeling the problem using the FEA software ANSYS. Parameters for the bearing specifications were defined, so that they could be modified for any type of bearing that was to be analyzed. A defect in the outer ring was modeled by a cylindrical hole. Hence the parameters defined included: outer raceway diameter, outer ring diameter, thickness of the outer ring, raceway radius, defect depth and the defect radius. The material properties considered for the material model definition in ANSYS were: Table 2 Material Properties Youngs Modulus Poissons ratio Density 200 GPa 0.3 7860 Kg/m3

The geometrical parameters for the bearing that was chosen for this analysis were: Table 1 Bearing specifications Inner raceway diameter Outer raceway diameter Ball diameter Number of balls Outer groove radius 52.291 mm 77.706 mm 12.7 mm 9 6.6 mm

For a ball bearing, n = 1.5 and ? = 0.5 for the above bearing. Also q max can be calculated from the Stribeck eqn. As [1]: 4. 37 Fr (2) qmax ? Z cos? The radial force on the bearing is assumed to be 3665 N, which is the radial force applied for 200 psi of pressure from the hydraulic mechanism of the bearing test rig currently being used at the Electromechanical Systems Lab at the MIE department [2]. The value for the qmax is calculated as 1780 N. This is the maximum force exerted on the outer ring by a rolling element. Other rolling elements exert a force smaller in magnitude, which depends on the angle of the rolling element in the loading zone. The values for these forces can be calculated by substituting the value of q max in eq. 1. For the analysis in this project it has been assumed that the force on the outer ring when a rolling element passes over a defect varies as shown in Figure 2.

The modeling was initiated by an arc, which was extruded to the ring thickness. A semicircle was cut at one end of the ring and was extruded along the arc so that it formed the raceway of the bearing. The radius of the semicircle was the radius of the raceway. At the center of the extruded arc, a cylinder was modeled as the defect. The volume of this cylinder was subtracted from the volume of the ring. Also to minimize the number of elements that would be generated later in the meshing phase it was decided to use a half model for the finite element analysis. The model along with the defect and the various volumes that were meshed separately are shown in the Figure 3.

Force

Outer volumes

Defect volume

Time
Fig. 2 Variation of force in the neighborhood of a defect in the outer ring Variation in the force exerted by the rolling element on the outer ring is seen when the rolling element passes over a defect. As the rolling element enters the defect, the force exerted tends to lessen in magnitude and the other rolling elements are forced to take up the load. This continues for as long as the rolling element is in the defect. When it impacts the other end of the defect, a surge in the force is seen because of the impact and then it decays to the value of the force exerted by the rolling element on the outer ring during normal operating conditions. Inner volumes Fig. 3 Solid model for finite element analysis 3.2 Mesh generation The first consideration during meshing was to ensure that the volume in the neighborhood of the defect was suitably meshed. This meant that a volume in the defect neighborhood be identified that would be most finely meshed. The defect was

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only present near the surface of the raceway. Hence it was decided to divide the ring longitudinally, using an arc extruded along the thickness at a depth of 2 mm below the defect. Also the ring was divided radially by orienting the working plane at 3 and 6 degrees from its global orientation. The area at the intersection of the working plane and the ring was used to divide the volume into sub-volumes. This was done so that a finer mapped mesh could be implemented near the defect. A free mesh was used for the volume which contained the defect. Free meshing can be used for any kind of solid model. Pyramid-shaped elements were introduced into the tetrahedral mesh for transitioning purposes. Mapped meshing was used to mesh all the other volumes. For mapped meshing, the usage of hexahedral (brick) elements was specified. Mapped meshing can only be used for volumes if they are regular. An equal number of element divisions were specified at the opposite edges so that mapped meshing could be used for the other volumes. This was done by using the LESIZE command. The areas were concatenated using the ACCAT command. Concatenation was necessary because the separate areas were created when the semicircle was extruded to form the raceway in the solid model of the bearing. After setting all these initial controls for the mesh, the next step was the choice of element types to be used for the analysis. For the outer volumes the element size decided was 2 mm, as a coarser mesh could be used. Three element types had been defined for the analysis: SOLID45, SOLID95 and SOLID92. SOLID45 was used for the outer volumes. SOLID45 is an 8noded element and it has 3 degrees of freedom per node. SOLID95 is a higher order version of SOLID45. Since SOLID95 is 20-noded, a considerably higher amount of time would have been required for computation by ANSYS if it was to be used for the outer volume meshing. Since a high level of accuracy was not required for these elements SOLID45 was used. SOLID95 also has 3 degrees of freedom and it is well suited to model curved boundaries. It was used to mesh the inner volumes. The element size used for these volumes was 0.8 mm. SOLID45

For the defect volume a free mesh was specified and the element size was chosen to be 0.5 mm. The meshing was done using SOLID95 elements. This element has options for tetrahedral, prism and pyramids also. The TCHG command was used for this mesh to convert the 20-node degenerate tetrahedral elements to their 10-node non-degenerate counterparts. The non-degenerate counterpart for the SOLID95 element is the SOLID92 element. This is done so that the computation time and memory usage is lesser as the SOLID92 is 10-noded. The use of free meshing for the defect volume necessitates that suitable transitioning elements be used at the interface of the mapped and free meshes. Transitional pyramids can be created at the interface of these two meshes. This is required to remove any non-conformities in the mesh. To create transitioning elements it is required that the elements used are capable of being degenerated into a pyramid shape. SOLID95 is such an element. That is one of the primary reasons why the ring volume was required to be divided into the inner volumes, as the SOLID45 elements are not capable of being degenerated. Figure 4 shows the complete meshed model and Figure 5 shows the details of the final meshed model in the vicinity of the defect.

Fig. 4 Completely meshed model

SOLID95

SOLID45

Fig. 5 Mesh details in the neighborhood of the defect

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3.3 Application of loads The analysis that was conducted on the meshed model was a transient analysis. Before such an analysis could be performed, the displacement constraints were applied on the sides of the model and the symmetry constraint was applied on the inner face of the half-model of the ring. All degrees of freedom of the sides were constrained to simulate the operation of the bearing inside a shaft. The finite element formulation of a transient analysis can be described by the equation:

? ? ?} ? [ K ]{ d} ? {F (t )} [ M ]{ d } ? [ C]{ d

(3)

where d is the displacement, [M] is the mass matrix, [C] is the damping matrix and [K] is the stiffness matrix. The damping matrix [C] is characterized by two coefficients namely, ? and ?. To apply a transient analysis to the meshed model, four load steps were defined. The load steps that were used for the analysis are as shown in Figure 6. This load step variation is based on the variation of the force as shown in Figure 2. All the four load steps are stepped loads. Ramped loads were initially considered for the transition from step 1 to 2 and step 2 to 3, but it was seen that the time step required for such a transition would be very small. 3

The accuracy of the transient analysis depends on the integration time step used for the analysis. A smaller time step ensures a more accurate solution. The time step should be small enough able to follow the loading function. Two different defect sizes were studied in this project, which were qualitatively different in their severity. The first defect considered was a cylinder of radius 1 mm and depth 0.5mm and the second one had a radius of 0.4 mm and depth of 0.4 mm. The total time interval for both the cases was taken as 1.1x10-3 seconds. This time interval was based on the assumption that a rolling element would be in the vicinity of the defect for approximately this amount of time if the shaft rotates at 300 rpm. The load step force and time duration values used for the two different defect sizes have been summarized in Tables 3 and 4. Table 3 Load step sizes for defect 1 Defect 1 Load (N) Time(10-3 s) Step 1 1750 0.4 Step 2 1000 0.2 Step 3 1900 0.1 Step 4 1800 0.4

Table 4 Load step sizes for defect 2 Defect 2

Load (N) Time (10-3 s)

Step 1 1750 0.5

Step 2 1000 0.05

Step 3 1800 0.05

Step 4 1750 0.5

Force
2

The time spent by a rolling element in the defect is reflected in load steps 2 and 3. As can be seen in the tables, due to the fact that defect 2 is much smaller than defect 1, the time spent by the rolling element in the defect is much lesser. The load value of 1750 N was used as it was an approximation to the qmax value calculated earlier. The sub-step values for the integration time step were 3 x 10-6 seconds. This value for the sub-step facilitated a minimum of 20 sub-steps for each load step. The loads mentioned were applied on nodes and their locations have been shown in Figure 7.

Time
Fig. 6 Load steps for transient analysis

Fig. 7 Application of nodal loads 1 2

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3.4 Solution phase The application of the load steps mentioned in the previous section was completed and a node in the lower half of the ring was chosen to monitor the vibration response of the bearing. Figure 8(a) and (b) below show the displacement variation for both defect 1and 2.

(a) Defect 1

(a) Defect 1

(b) Defect 2 Fig. 9 Nodal velocity vs. time plots for a node on the outer ring To quantitatively compare the severity of the two defects, it is proposed that the sum of the square of the velocities for both the defects be compared to each other. Such elementary mathematical operations on variables can be done by using the time post-processor. The sum of squares of the velocity would be an indicator of the energy dissipated during the vibrations. The values for the energy so defined were found to be as shown in Table 5. (b) Defect 2 Fig. 8 Nodal displacement vs. time plots for a node on the outer ring As can be seen from the plots, because of the smaller size of defect 2, the vibration caused by the entry of the rolling element in the defect does not get damped before the impact of the rolling element at point 4 generates a new vibration response. For defect 1, this phenomenon can be more clearly seen because of its larger width. Using the time post-processor in ANSYS (/POST 26) the derivatives of variables can also be plotted. Using this technique the nodal velocities have also been plotted. These have been shown in Figs. 9 (a) and (b). Some researchers have sought to model the bearing vibrations directly instead of considering the forces that cause it [3-4]. Table 5 Comparison of energy values for the two defects Defect 1 1 mm 40.6 Defect 2 0.4 mm 46.8

Radius Energy

The energy dissipated for the smaller defect (defect 2) was seen to be higher than that for the larger defect. This could be explained on the basis of the fact that higher values for the velocity were seen for the second defect as the velocity values were higher as one vibration was superimposed on the other. It would be interesting to note the limiting value for the defect size for which such a trend would continue. Such an analysis was beyond the scope of this project. A defect of area 6.25 mm2 is generally considered to indicate the failure of a bearing in the industry [5]. The area for the two defects considered in this analysis are: 3.14 and 0.5 mm2 . The energy value for such a

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failed bearing can be calculated and energy values for other defect sizes can be normalized for more suitable comparisons. 4. Conclusions It has been shown that finite element modeling can be effectively used to differentiate between vibration signatures of two defects of different sizes. Assumptions have been made for the variation of forces exerted by the rolling element on the outer ring in the vicinity of the defect. Though the values for the forces employed in this analysis are not exact, the aim has been to understand the trend of vibration signatures. Two different defect sizes were studied and the nodal vibration and velocity plots were generated. An objective method to compare the defect size was proposed and its application to the two cases was demonstrated. A more detailed analysis based on this project could point to a way for comparing the defect sizes based on the vibration signatures. 5. Future Work It is important to be able to precisely understand the variation of forces due to the rolling element passing over a defect in a bearing. A detailed analysis using experiments on a bearing test rig should be performed. The finite element model can then be iteratively adjusted so as to conform to the vibration signature that is arrived at by experimentation. Such an exercise would improve the accuracy of the finite element modeling results. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank Prof. Ian Grosse and Prof. Robert Gao for their guidance and support. REFERENCES [1] [2]
rd T. Harris, Rolling bearing analysis, 1991, 3 . Ed., Wiley, New York M. Kaczorowski, A neural network approach for ball bearing life prognosis, Project Report, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts -Amherst, May 2001 D. Ho and R. Randall, Optimisation of bearing diagnostic techniques using simulated and actual bearing fault signals, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, 2000, 14 (5), pp. 763-788 P. McFadden and J. Smith, Model for the vibration produced by a single point defect in a rolling element bearing, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 1984, 96 (1), pp. 69-82 M. Hoeprich, Rolling element bearing fatigue damage propagation, Transactions of the ASME Journal of Tribology, 1992, 114, pp. 328-333

[3]

[4]

[5]

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