Slewing bearing

About: Slewing bearing is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1498 publications have been published within this topic receiving 5309 citations.

Technology and experiments of 42CrMo bearing ring forming based on casting ring blank

Abstract: Bearing ring is the crucial component of bearing. With regard to such problems as material waste, low efficiency and high energy consumption in current process of producing large bearing ring, a new process named “casting-rolling compound forming technology” is researched by taking the typical 42CrMo slew bearing as object. Through theoretical analysis, the design criteria of the main casting-rolling forming parameters are put forward at first. Then the constitutive relationship model of as-cast 42CrMo steel and its mathematical model of dynamic recrystallization are obtained according to the results of the hot compression experiment. By a coupled thermal-mechanical finite element model for radial-axial rolling of bearing ring, the fraction of dynamic recrystallization is calculated and recrystallized grains size are predicated. Meanwhile, the effects of the initial rolling temperature and feed rate of idle roll on material microstructure evolution are analyzed. Finally, the industrial rolling experiment is designed and performed, based on the simulation results. In addition, mechanical and metallographic tests are conducted on rolled bearing ring to get the mechanical parameters and metallographic structure. The experimental data and results show that the mechanical properties of bearing ring produced by casting-rolling compound forming technology are up to industrial standard, and a qualified bearing ring can be successfully formed by employing this new technology. Through the study, a process of forming large bearing ring directly by using casting ring blank is obtained, which could provide an effective theoretical guidance for manufacturing large ring parts. It also has an edge in saving material, lowering energy and improving efficiency.

Four-Point Contact Ball Bearing Model With Deformable Rings

Abstract: In many applications, such as four-point contact slewing bearings or main shaft angular contact ball bearings, the rings and housings are so thin that the assumption of rigid rings does not hold anymore. In this paper, several methods are proposed to account for the flexibility of rings in a quasi-static ball bearing numerical model. The modeling approach consists of coupling a semianalytical approach and a finite element (FE) model to describe the deformation of the rings and housings. The manner in which this weak coupling is made differs depending on how the structural deformation of the ring and housing assemblies is injected into the set of nonlinear geometrical and equilibrium equations in order to solve them. These methods enable us to account for ring ovalization, ring twist, and raceway opening (including change of conformity) since a tulip deformation mode of the ring groove is observed for high contact angles. Either the torus fitting technique or mean displacement computation are used to determine these geometrical parameters. A comparison between the different approaches allows us to study, in particular, the impact of raceway conformity change. The loads used in this investigation are chosen in order that the maximum contact pressure (the Hertz pressure) at the ball-raceway interface remains below 2000 MPa, without any contact ellipse truncation. For the ball bearing example considered here, relative differences of up to 30% on the axial displacement, 10% on the maximum contact pressure, and 10% on the contact angle are observed by comparing rigid and deformable rings for a typical loading representative of the one encountered in operation. Despite the local change of conformity, which becomes significant at high contact angles and for thin ball bearing flanges, it is shown that this hardly affects the internal load distribution. The paper ends with a discussion on how the ring and housing flexibility may affect the loading envelope when the truncation of the contact ellipse is an issue.

General static load‐carrying capacity of four‐contact‐point slewing bearings for wind turbine generator actuation systems

Abstract: Four-contact-point slewing bearings are widely used in wind turbine generators (WTGs) to adjust the orientation of the blades and the nacelle to fully exploit wind resources. These bearings must withstand static and fatigue loads; however, at the first stages of the design process, the bearings are commonly selected by considering only static loads. This paper presents a further step of a previous theoretical work published by the authors in the field of the static load-carrying capacity of four-contact-point slewing bearings under axial, radial and tilting-moment loads. In that work, a generalization of the works by Sjovall and Rumbarger was presented, providing an acceptance surface of the bearing in the load space. The contact angle of the balls was assumed to be load independent. The present work improves that development by considering the influence of the variability of the contact angle with the applied load, and as a result, the acceptance surface has been redefined. By comparing the results with those of the finite element model published by the authors, it is proven that the new model presented in this work is more realistic than the previous one. Thus, it is believed that this methodology can be easily applied for the initial selection of blade and yaw bearings in WTGs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.