Abstract
Enhancement in fatigue life of the rolling-element bearing has been captivating since years. The hollow concept had been triggered years back; however, it could not catch widespread applications due to catastrophic failure. Thus, any novel concept of the rolling element must be assessed for its strength against catastrophic failure before competing for better fatigue life on field with other alternatives. This paper commences with the outcomes of the comparative assessment of the experimental evaluation of strength against fracture under static loads for layered and hollow rollers with solid rollers, which devise the requirements for new concepts. The end hemispherical cavity (EHC) roller concept, being a proper geometrical blending of solidity and hollowness, prospects to overcome the strength concern along with a considerable reduction in contact stresses. Thus, experimental investigation was conducted with full-bearing fracture tests and individual roller specimens fracture tests for five variants: EHC, solid, layered, 61H, and 37H (hollow rollers with 61% and 37% hollowness, respectively). The simulations were carried out to support the outcomes of experimental trials. The experimental results with full-bearing samples and individual roller specimens demonstrated ranking as follows: EHC, 37H, layered, and 61H. The EHC roller concept was substantiated to be stronger than hollow and layered rollers besides prompting appreciable reduction in contact stresses compared with the solid roller. The simulation results agreed well with experimental results of fracture tests, and the recommendations from findings of failure theories (maximum normal stress, distortion energy, and maximum shear stress) adopted for estimating fracture load for rollers have been discussed.
