A Study on the Higher-order Waviness Errors in Ball Bearings Based on Vibration Experiments

Abstract

This paper made a research on the higher-order waviness errors in ball bearings based on vibration experiments. Firstly, to find out the effects of higher-order waviness errors on the vibration of ball bearings, two groups of experiments have been done. In the first group, the inner race and outer race of test bearings had not been processed by superfinishing, while in the second group had been. The measurements of form errors showed that the higher-order waviness errors of the first group were much lower than those of the second group. Then, the vibration levels of the two groups were tested. The results indicated that the effects of higherorder waviness errors on vibration of ball bearings are prominent. Therefore, the higher-order waviness errors should be controlled strictly in the manufacturing processes of ball bearings. Further, to evaluate the higher-order waviness errors effectively, a new evaluation method was intended to be proposed in this paper. By comparing the waviness error excitation spectra of displacement, velocity and acceleration, it was revealed that the acceleration excitation spectrum is much more effective on distinguishing the magnitudes of higher-order waviness errors. Therefore, the acceleration excitation spectrum is proposed to evaluate the higherorder waviness errors.