Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication Study on Multiple Rolling Elements of Ball Bearing

In order to accurately analyze the lubrication performance for a ball bearing, the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) performance for multiple rolling elements (MRES) in the ball bearing was studied. Taking deep groove ball bearing as an example, an EHL model for the MRES was established and solved with the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique and low relaxation iteration method. Then, the EHL performance for the central rolling element among the MRES was analyzed and compared with the EHL characteristics for the single rolling element (SRE). The numerical results show that, compared with the SRE EHL, the film pressure of the central rolling element among the MRES decreased, and the secondary pressure peak moved to the inlet region. Moreover, compared with the SRE EHL, the central film thickness of the central rolling element among the MRES increased, and the load-carrying capacity of the central rolling element among the MRES decreased by from 5.99% to 9.70% when the radial displacement of the central rolling element increased from 10 μm to 30 μm.