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Kabus 2012
Kabus 2012
1 Introduction cases. The necessary steps in order to include multiple load cases
are included.
The Lundberg/Palmgren rolling bearing fatigue life theory
This paper is organized with a summary of the bearing life cal-
adopted in Ref. [1] gives well defined methods for evaluating the
culation according to Ref. [1] followed by a subsequent deduction
rating life of roller bearings based on the internal load distribution
of the optimal load distribution in a cylindrical roller bearing with
among the rollers. Given a specific bearing design, the explicit
respect to maximizing the fatigue life. Subsequently, the cylindri-
relationship allows for optimization of the internal load distribu-
cal roller bearing FE-model is presented with a description of the
tion with the purpose of maximizing the bearing fatigue life. This
implementation of load constraints in the model. A summary of
has been investigated in Ref. [2] where the effect on bearing fa-
the basic concepts of topology optimization, with emphasis on
tigue life of the outer ring section and clearance in a planet gear
bearing housing optimization, follows before the optimal load dis-
bearing is examined, in Ref. [3] where the maximum roller load is
tribution and the bearing model are utilized in a topology optimi-
reduced by making the inner ring elliptical, and in Ref. [4] where
zation where an optimal bearing housing is designed. Different
the ring dimensions are optimized to maximize the fatigue life. In
housing designs are finally compared in two case studies, one with
these studies, the bearing ring deflections are calculated by analyt-
aligned contact and one misaligned. These studies are followed by
ical relationships and do not support an arbitrary stiffness of the
the concluding remarks.
supporting structure, which can have a significant influence on the
load distribution, as it will be demonstrated in this study.
In Refs. [5,6], simplified FE-models of a cylindrical roller bear-
ing are presented, where each rolling element is represented by a 2 Cylindrical Roller Bearing Fatigue Evaluation
number of nonlinear springs representing the Hertzian contact By assuming aligned line contact in the roller/raceway contacts,
stiffness between the roller and the raceways. The current paper the bearing fatigue calculations follow the procedure in Ref. [7]
employs an equivalent model where the spring load from each which is, given the assumptions, in accordance with Ref. [1]. It is
roller is used for bearing fatigue life evaluation. Topology optimi- assumed that the outer ring is stationary. The basic dynamic
zation is employed on the bearing housing design in order to max- capacity of a raceway contact, i.e., the load, which a roller/raceway
imize the bearing life while reducing the housing mass. This is contact, for a 90% probability of survival, will endure for 1 106
achieved by formulating design constraints for each roller load to revolutions of a bearing ring, in a cylindrical roller bearing is
ensure an optimal load distribution in the bearing.
There are several reasons for applying the design force con- 29
ð1 cÞ27 2 29 7 1
straints on each roller load instead of directly optimizing using the Qc;m ¼ bm 552 1 c9 ð2rr Þ27 l9 Z4 (1)
bearing fatigue life as an objective function. Firstly, the force con- ð16cÞ 4
From a contact point of view, the validity of Eq. (4) requires that
the rollers are at line contact and that only negligible contact mis-
alignment is present. Fig. 1 Optimal and rigidly supported load distributions
2.1 Optimal Roller Load Distribution. The explicit rela- springs connecting the bearing inner and outer raceway. Apart
tionship between roller loads and bearing fatigue life in Eq. (4) from the high generality of this method, it does not involve con-
allows for optimization of the internal load distribution in the tact elements, which again allows for relative coarse modeling
bearing with respect to bearing life. This means that using a spe- mesh, a fast solution time, and good convergence performance.
cific bearing, the life is optimized by ensuring an optimal internal Obviously, this method does not allow for detailed contact evalua-
load distribution among the rollers. The optimization is expressed tion including roller crowning, cage interference, contact pressure
as evaluation, and etc., but such level of details only have limited
influence with respect to simulating the load supported by each
Maximize: L10 ðQÞ roller, necessary in this study in order to optimize the bearing fa-
(5)
subject to: tigue life according to Eq. (4). It is recognized that a final fatigue
life evaluation must include the actual pressure profile on each
X
Z contact, including crowning, misalignment, etc. and comply with
Equilibrium: cos hj Qj ¼ F (6)
j¼1
Ref. [1], but for optimization purposes, the importance lies in the
fourth power load/life relationship.
X
Z Since the spring modeling allows for direct access to the con-
Equilibrium: sin hj Qj ¼ 0 (7) tact forces used when evaluating the bearing fatigue life and the
j¼1 possibility of optimizing the load distribution, as discussed in this
paper, it is indeed an appropriate approximation.
where hj is the angle from the radial load to the position of roller
j. Since a pure radial load is applied, only the in plane force com-
ponents are considered in the equilibrium conditions in Eqs. (6) 3.1 Spring Modeling Approach. Many different theoretical
and (7). The optimal roller loads Qopt from the optimization in and empirical expressions exists for the roller/raceway contact
Eq. (5) represent the load distribution yielding the highest possible deflection. See Ref. [12] for an overview of several commonly
fatigue life according to Eq. (4). This load distribution is visual- used relationships. In a parameter study in Ref. [6], it was found
ized in Fig. 1 for F ¼ 1 N and Z ¼ 52 along with the equivalent that for the spring modeling approach, the best suitable expression
load distribution of a rigid bearing support. The bearing fatigue is the one specified in Ref. [13], in which the roller/raceway con-
life of the optimal load distribution exceeds the fatigue life of the tact deflection for steel/steel contact, identical for both raceways,
rigid support by approximately 24% according to Eq. (4) despite is
supporting an identical external load. 9
It should be noted that the optimal load distribution yields a Q10
steep load increase when the rollers enter the loaded zone, which di ¼ do ¼ 8 3:84 105 (8)
l 10
can be detrimental to the bearing because of the risk of smearing.
Firstly, this solution might not be obtainable, but if the final where Q is in N and l in mm. Equation (8) is reordered to be
design yields an undesirable steep load increase, this can be expressed by a stiffness constant,
changed by modifying the Qopt values. However, any change to
Qopt yields reduced fatigue life, but other bearing factors should 8
!109
be considered, if necessary. l10 10 10
9
Q¼ di9 ¼ ki di (9)
In Sec. 3.2.1, it is described how Qopt is used for specifying 3:84 105
design constraints in the topology optimization of the bearing
housing. Interpreting the roller/inner race and roller/outer race contact
deflection as two springs in series, each roller can be represented
3 FE-Modeling of Bearing System by an effective spring stiffness substituting both contact stiffness.
Noticing that the inner and outer race contact stiffness are equal
Rolling element bearings constitute a significant FE-modeling according to Eq. (8) and that centrifugal forces are neglected, i.e.,
challenge due to the high number of contacts between the rollers d/2 ¼ di ¼ do, the effective contact stiffness is
and raceways. In Ref. [10], a single roller/raceway contact is mod-
eled in FE using 50 200 ¼ 10,000 contact elements in order to 109
model the contact pressure with acceptable precision. In a com- 10 10 d ki
kr d 9 ¼ ki di9 ¼ ki ) kr ¼ 10 (10)
plete bearing model with 50 rollers, this mesh density corresponds 2 29
to 1 106 contact elements in addition to the solid elements in the
model. Obviously, simplifications are needed in order to allow for In this study, three springs are used to model each roller, as
efficient analysis of complete rolling element bearings in FE. This sketched in Fig. 2(a), because it has been found sufficient to cap-
is addressed in Ref. [11] where a cylindrical roller bearing is mod- ture the load distribution in the bearing and allows for modeling
eled in 2D using contact elements. In many applications, the bear- of misalignment, as shown in Fig. 2(b). To justify the use of three
ing housing is inadequately approximated as a 2D structure. springs, Fig. 3 shows a convergence study using the cylindrical
References [5,6] present a more general approach, where each bearing and setup presented in Sec. 5 and the V2 bearing housing
roller is approximated as a number of axially distributed nonlinear shown in Fig. 8(a). Figure 3(a) shows a load distribution
Since rollers only transfer forces in compression, the force deflec- Qcon;j ¼ Qopt;j ð1 þ eÞ; e0 (14)
tion relationship for roller j spring k is
( ) The load constraint equations are formulated as the sum of the
109 load on the springs
qjk ¼ k jk djk c=2 if djk > c=2 (12)
0 if djk c=2
X
3
qjk Qcon;j ¼ Qopt;j ð1 þ eÞ (15)
The diametral clearance c is assumed zero in the rest of the paper, k¼1
but the procedure is general and will not require modifications for
c = 0. Since the rollers are assumed to be at line contact, the springs rep-
The relative raceway misalignment, see Fig. 2(b), at the roller resenting each roller should be uniformly loaded, and Eq. (15) can
position is derived from the spring deflections be expressed in deflections using Eq. (12)
X
3 109
djk Qopt;j c tural finite element in the CAE model is defined as design
ð1 þ eÞ þ ¼ dj (16) variable, which can be solid (relative density at upper limit
3 kr 2
k¼1 qe ¼ 1) or void (relative density at minimum limit qe ¼ qmin 0).
The so-called SIMP-model is applied for modeling the elemental
where dj is the reference deflection value used to define the load stiffness as being proportional to a power-law of the relative ele-
constraints in Sec. 4.1. dj is thus the limit on the mean relative mental density {q}, a vector containing the design variables of all
approach of the end nodes of the three springs of roller j along the design elements. Thereby, the optimization formulation for the
respective spring axes. optimal bearing housing design yields
3.2.2 Misalignment Constraints. To limit the relative race-
Minimize: Global compliance ðfuðfqgÞg; fqgÞ
way misalignments an additional constraint is added for each (20)
loaded roller, using the misalignment angle calculated in Eq. (13) subject to:
Equilibrium: RfðfuðfqgÞg; fqgÞgl ¼ f0g
aj amax;j (17) (21)
for l 2 ½1; max load case
1 dj3 dj1 3
tan amax;j (18) Mass: mðfqgÞ cm mini (22)
2l
X
3 dðfuðfqgÞg; fqgÞ
dj3 dj1 tan amax;j 2 l ¼ d (19) Deflections:
j;k;l
dj;l
a;j 3 (23)
3 k¼1
for j 2 ½1; Z; k 2 ½1; 3
The maximum allowed misalignment angle for roller j, amax,j,
can be chosen based on bearing manufacturer recommendations
Misalignments: dðfuðfqgÞg; fqgÞj;3;l dðfuðfqgÞg; fqgÞj;1;l
and evaluation of the life impact according to Ref. [1] by simulat-
ing the contact pressure at different misalignment angles using da;j;l (24)
dedicated FE contact simulations or elastic half space simulations.
Both methods are demonstrated in Ref. [10], and the latter used As an objective in Eq. (20), we want to maximize the stiffness.
for post-processing in Sec. 5.2.1. In all cases, the robustness of the However, instead the total compliance is minimized, which is
design is improved if the allowed misalignment angle is chosen as equivalent to maximizing the total stiffness. The force equilibrium
low as possible without making the design domain infeasible, {R}l in Eq. (21) of the entire bearing housing for the given load
causing unacceptable convergence performance or yielding excess case l is solved using an implicit finite element solver [15] solving
material usage. The variable da;j is used to formulate misalign- directly for the displacements {u} of the entire bearing housing.
ment constraints using spring deflections. The total mass of the bearing housing is constrained to fulfill a
In the final case study, an identical misalignment constraint is certain weight target described in Eq. (22), where mini is the mass
applied for all rollers, but as indicated using subscript j, this can of the initial design space. As earlier described, the aim is to
be defined individually. This option can be utilized to allow a obtain an increased fatigue life of the bearing by designing against
larger misalignment on low loaded contacts for which the impact an optimal roller deflection distribution. Thus, the roller deflec-
on the total bearing life is small. tions dj,l are constraint against the constraint roller deflection dis-
tribution dj;l from Eq. (23).
4 Conceptual Bearing Housing Designing Using In general, more than one load case will be considered for a
Topology Optimization bearing housing optimization, and each load case can be weighted
in the objective function, as a starting point according to the per-
Topology optimization is frequently used in the early design centage of use at that condition. The roller load and misalignment
phase producing new design suggestions where the optimization constraints are more complicated to define since the optimum load
targets could be to obtain desirable stiffness properties and fulfill distribution cannot be achieved for all load cases. A general rec-
mass constraints. Usually, topology optimization provides the ability ommendation is to define the closest to optimum constraint values
to yield correct decisions in the early mechanical design phase. The for load cases representing the majority of use. For the remaining
aim of the present paper is not to give a full theoretical background load cases, focus should initially be on reducing misalignments
of topology optimization. A comprehensive theoretical survey of to- since contact misalignments in general are more severe than a
pology optimization is found in Ref. [14] and the references therein. non-optimum load distribution. After the topology optimization
The intention is to give a brief introduction to topology optimization the results can be evaluated and if necessary the constraint values
and, specifically, address how topology optimization can be applied can be adjusted and the optimization rerun.
for obtaining conceptual designs of bearing houses.
4.1 Topology Optimization for Bearing Housing 4.2 Adding Topology Optimization in Existing CAE and
Designing. Figure 4 shows the concept behind topology optimi- CAD Design Processes. The optimization formulation in
zation. The elemental relative density qe of each individual struc- Eqs. (20)–(24) is solved using an iterative design process scheme
Qopt 4786 1 – –
Rigid 632 0.13 – 0.047
V1 869 0.18 2769 0.096
V2 1143 0.24 1977 0.110
V3 1085 0.23 1438 0.150
V4 2134 0.45 1438 0.158
V5 4219 0.88 1438 0.165
x¼ coordinate along roller [18] Buhl, T., Pedersen, C. B. W., and Sigmund, O., 2000, “Stiffness Design of Geo-
metrically Non-Linear Structures Using Topology Optimization,” Struct. Multi-
Z¼ total number of rollers in a bearing discip. Optim., 19(2), pp. 93–104.
a¼ relative misalignment between inner and outer raceway [19] Lundberg, G., 1939, “Elastische Berührung zweier Halbräume,” Forsch. Geb.
c¼ auxiliary parameter, rr/rp Ingenieurwes., 10(5), pp. 201–211.
cm ¼ mass reduction fraction [20] Cretu, S., Antaluca, E., and Cretu, O., 2003, “The Study of Non-Hertzian Con-
centrated Contacts by a GC-DFFT Technique,” National Tribology Conference.
d¼ total deflection of both raceway contacts of a roller [21] Kabus, S., Hansen, M. R., and Mouritsen, O.Ø., 2011, “A Cylindrical Roller
e¼ optimization constraint tolerance Bearing Model to Accurately Consider Non-Hertzian Contact Pressure in Time
¼ Poisson’s ratio Domain Simulations,” J. Tribol., submitted.