Author(s)

E. Legrand & F. Robbe-Valloire

Abstract

The tangential elastic compliance of two bodies in dry rolling and spinning contact may give rise to a transverse creep force as it was first stated by K.L. Johnson [1]. The influence of such effects in non lubricated ball bearings is investigated with the help of a new version of the simplified elastic theory of rolling contact (Kalker [2]). This theory, modified to preserve asymptotic exactness in curved conformal contacts analysis, has been included in a ball bearing's analysis software. It appears that for some bearings and over some critical value of the friction coefficient, the transverse creep force arising under spin at both ball/races contacts may modify significantly the contact angles and increase the power loss of the bearing when compared to calculations ignoring the tangential elastic compliance.

Keywords