Contact Loading Distribution Of Axle Bearing Assembly And Lubrication Performance Of Bearings

The internal contact mechanism and lubricating condition of bearing directlyaffects the service rigidity,fatigue life, which is an important part of high-endbearings study. This paper undertook a research on the double row tapered bearingsused on high-speed railway on the basis of multi-interfacial contact mechanics modeland the elastic greased model, acquired the contact lubrication under differentinterfacial clearance and conditions. The actual analytic process was achieved by thefollowing steps:(1) A complex multi-interfacial contact mechanics model of axle roller bearingassembly under the given loading condition was developed by the finite elementmethod, where the journal deformation and the multi-interfacial contact problem oftwo bearings of axle bearing system, mounted on the journal of wheel shaft, were alsoconsidered. It was found that there was the significant effect of journal deformationboth on the radial contact load of roller against ring and the axial contact loads ofroller end against ring flange in the axle bearing assembly. Additionally, thewell-controlled design parameters of interfacial clearance and clearance difference oftwo bearings can improve the uniformed contact performance of the axle bearingassembly.(2) The elastic greased model of axle box bearing was established to study theirlubricant performance and rationality of the bearing lubrication results was verified bythe minimum film thickness formula and Hertz formula; According to the lubricationmodel, lubrication performance law of the axle box bearing was studied under thedifferent operating conditions. Under the given operating conditions, the results showthat the influence from speed to lubrication performance was larger, while theinfluence from journal deformation to lubrication performance was less. Additionally,the lubrication performance was seriously influenced by the increase of contact load,which could especially reduce the minimum film thickness and increase thelubrication pressure, meanwhile would lead boundary lubrication between rollers andrings.According to the numerical experiment, the contact lubrication simulationplatform and the multi-interfacial contact mechanics model of axle box bearingsystem in railway passenger car contributes to provide analysis platform of contactlubrication mechanism for bearing products and technology development.