General Notes About Bearing Life

Put simply, bearing life means how long you can expect your ball bearing to last under standard operating conditions. There will be a number of factors involved in the life of your bearing, including the amount of bearing load the ball bearing will be expected to handle. It's important to know the bearing life of your ball bearings so that you can plan down the road as to when you will have to replacing your bearing. Bearing life is calculated in number of revolutions, so you will need to establish how much time a revolution takes and what percentage of time your application has the ball bearing in continuous revolution in order to determine your bearing life. The bearing life statistic is a measure of the amount of time in revolutions where 90% of the ball bearings can be expected to have survived. This does not mean every bearing will fail as soon as this number has been exceeded, of course. The median life for ball bearings, also referred to as the Mean Time Before Failure, or MTMF, is about five times the basic life number for the bearing. This means that at 5 times the Basic Life Rating revolutions you should expect about half of your ball bearings to have failed. It's important to remember that there may be some variation in your individual results with a ball bearing, and factors such as proper lubrication, care and handling of the bearing, and stress on the bearing can result in very significant fluctuations in the life of the ball bearing. NMB Ball Bearings are used in a wide variety of applications. Many contain several application and environmental variables, all of which have an influence on bearing performance and life. Therefore it is extremely important to select the correct Bearing for each application in order to obtain the best possible results. These values are calculated according to JIS Specs as follows:

Basic Life Rating

The Basic Life Rating (L10) is defined in specification JIS B1518 "Dynamic load ratings and rating life for rolling bearings" as follows: The Basic Life Rating is the life obtained with 90% reliability, when an individual bearing or an identical group of bearings are manufactured with common materials, common manufacturing processes and quality, and operate under the same conventional conditions. L10 Life is the accumulated rotation where 90% of survive without material flaking when they are operated under fixed conditions, of a population of bearings. The calculation formula for the Basic Life Rating is the following. : Basic Life Rating in millions of revolutions : Basic Dynamic Load Rating : Equivalent Dynamic Radial Load Factor There is a relationship between the Basic Life Rating (revolutions) and Basic Life (time). : Rotation Speed (min-1)

: Time (hours)

General Notes About Bearing Load

There are two types of bearing load to consider with a ball bearing: radial load, which represents loads perpendicular to the shaft, and axial, or thrust, load, which represents loads parallel to the shaft. A ball bearing can handle both of these kinds of loads, but different loads affect bearings in different ways, so multiple bearing rating calculations are required. The load bearing calculations are outlined by the JIS, the Japanese Industrial Standards system, which provides standards for not only the ball bearing but also for a wide variety of industrial activities requiring accurate measures. JIS measurements are widely accepted standards throughout the world. You will find all ball bearing standards under JIS B, as B is the classification regarding mechanical engineering, which is the classification the bearing falls under (other classifications include A for civil engineering and C for electrical engineering). Use the load ratings to determine how many of each type of ball bearing you will need and which type of bearing will be appropriate to your needs, so that you can enjoy long, effective life for your bearing-using applications. Bearing information regarding various load ratings follows below:

Basic Dynamic Load Rating (Cr)

The method for calculating the Basic Dynamic Load Rating can be found in JIS B1518 and is based on an endurance test of 1,000,000 revolutions.

Dynamic Equivalent Radial Load Factor (Pr)

The Dynamic Equivalent Radial Load Factor is defined as "the direction and magnitude to the bearing, which is able to obtain the same life under the actual load and rotation conditions". From the calculation formula and the table below, the axial and the radial loads are replaced by the Dynamic Equivalent Radial Load Factor (Pr).

Pr = XFr + YFa X and Y are taken from the table below Fr = Radial load (N or kgf) Fa = Axial load (N or kgf)
Axial Load Ratio Units N 0.172 0.345 {kgf} { 0.0175 } { 0.0352 } e X 1 Y 0 X 0.56 Y 2.30 1.99 1.71 0.19 0.22 0.26

0.689 { 0.0703 } 1.55 0.28 1.03 { 0.105 } 1.45 0.30 1.38 { 0.143 } 1.31 0.34 2.07 { 0.211 } 1.15 0.38 3.45 { 0.352 } 1.04 0.42 5.17 { 0.527 } 1.00 0.44 6.89 { 0.703 } i : No. of rows Z : No. of balls Dw : Ball Diameter (mm) The values for X andY that are not in the above table shall be calculated by linear interpolation.

Basic Static Load Rating (Cor)

The formula for the Basic Static Load Rating and the Static Equivalent Radial Load Rating of ball bearings is defined in specification JIS B1519 as follows: Basic Static Load Rating (Cor) : The Basic Static Load Rating is the amount of static radial load that will cause a total permanent deformation (ball and raceway) on the most heavily stressed ball/raceway contact area (the center) that equals to 0.0001 of the ball diameter under a stress level of 4200 MPa. Static Equivalent Radial Load (Por) : The Static Equivalent Radial Load is a static radial load that would cause the same total permanent deformation on the most heavily stressed ball/raceway contact as the actual load. The largest value obtained from the following two formulas will be used.

P0r = X0Fr + Y0Fa P0r = Fr X0 and Y0 are defined in specification JIS B1519 Table 2 (the coefficient values of X0 and Y0 of radial ball bearing) X0=0.6; Y0=0.5 Fr= Radial Load (N or kgf) Fa= Axial Load (N or kgf)
If you have any further questions regarding ball bearing loads or ball bearing life and are not able to find your answer on the NMB site, please feel free to contact NMB Tech at any time in order to get more specific information. Our highly qualified expert ball bearing engineers will be happy to answer any questions you may have promptly and completely.

Bearing life calculation

SKF-site

Contents

1 Bearing Life Calculation o 1.1 Bearing Life Calculation o 1.2 Design Example o 1.3 Review o 1.4 Further Reading

Bearing Life Calculation

This page is created by Rick Luttikhold and Jorrit Taekema, as an exercise for the course Advanced Design Support. It describes a design tool that can be used to calculate the lifetime of a bearing. The tool is offered by SKF one of the larger bearing suppliers. [1]

Bearing Life Calculation

After selecting a bearing out of the SKF assortment, the design tool can be used to verify if the selected bearing has a lifetime that corresponds to the desired lifetime. The following steps has to be done to calculate the lifetime: Step 1: Select the right bearing. At the homepage of the SKF under the header Products all types of bearings are shown, arranged in the Interactive Engineering Catalogue [2]. By selecting a bearing type, the characteristics of the specific bearing are given and the user can select a bearing that suits the requirements.

Step 2: Fill in the calculation sheet [3] After selecting the bearing, a part of the parameters are filled in automatically. These predefined parameters are fixed and depend on type and size. The other parameters depend on the working conditions, and have to be filled in following the next steps.

Predefined parameters d D C bearing bore diameter [mm] bearing outside diameter [mm] basic dynamic load rating [kN]

Pu fatigue load limit [kN]

Parameters depending on working conditions P equivalent dynamic bearing load [kN] n rotational speed [r/min] v operating kinematic viscosity [mm2/s] c factor for contamination

Step 3: Fill in the dynamic bearing load. This is the load, which has to be calculated by for hand by the user. Keep in mind that this load is measured in kilo Newton, and is just for one bearing.

Step 4: Fill in the amount of revolutions per minute.

Step 5: Fill in the operating kinematic viscosity. Because this parameter depends on different factors like the type of lubricant and the operating temperature, an additional tool can be used to find out what the operating viscosity is. [4] [5] Step 6: Selecting the factor for contamination. The scale of the factor refers to typical solid contaminants, which have a large impact at the bearing lifetime. Step 7: After filling in these parameters the calculation can be made, by clicking calculate. In this way the basic rating life is calculated, both in millions of revolutions as in hours (L10 and L10h) The basic rating life can now be compared to the required lifetime. If the difference is too big, a different bearing has to be selected or the operating conditions have to be changed in the design, after which the calculation can be redone.

L10 L10h k

basic rating life [millions of revolutions] basic rating life [hours] viscosity ratio /1

v1 aSKF L10m

required kinematic viscosity [mm2/s ] for =1 SKF factor SKF rating life (at 90% reliability) [millions of revolutions]

L10mh SKF rating life [hours]

Design Example
As a design example a bearing calculation for a shaft of a washing machine is done. At one side of the shaft the power belt transfers the power to the shaft, at the other side the tumble drier is placed. To support the driveshaft of the washing machine, bearings are needed. The position of the bearings are shown in the 2D drawing of the shaft including the tumble drier. To exam if the selected bearings correspond to the desired lifetime a calculation is made. The biggest dynamic load works on the shaft during centrifugation. This example shows the calculation of only one bearing.

Axial bearing at the point of F2: The shaft is supported by a bearing at point F2 in the free body diagram. The other bearing at the end of the axes only takes radian forces, so a standard rolling bearing would be

enough. The shaft has an inner diameter of 30mm and an outer diameter of 62mm. The dynamic load acting on the bearing is 15,4 kN. A ball bearing is selected which fits the boundary conditions. (6206) By which the first parameters are added in the form. By clicking on the operating kinematic viscosity, v [mm2/s] a new window appears were the viscosity can be calculated. The rotation speed r (1100 r/min) and the operating temperature (50C) need to be filled in, push the calculate-button and the required viscosity will be calculated. To determine the operating temperature for the known lubricant, the just calculated required viscosity and the temperature could be filled in. The operating viscosity appeared to be 16.7 mm2/s. Now all parameters are known, the basic rating life of the bearing could be calculated:

The basic rating life of the bearing is determined on 35 hours (L10h)and 2 millions of revolutions (L10). If this is compared to the desired lifetime (1560h), it is not sufficient enough. Assumed a lifetime for the washing machine of 10 years, operating 3 times a week for 1 hour. So another more suitable bearing has to be selected.

Review
The design tool has been experienced as easy to learn, and the different parameters are well explained. It is considered as a handy tool to verify if the selected bearing meets the required lifetime. However users need some previous knowledge in order to select the right bearing type, and calculate for instance the dynamic bearing load.

Further Reading

Pacamor's bearing life estimation formulas AHR's bearing life calculator Bearing's predicting bearing life Maintenance World's article on Calculate Bearing Life Wikipedia: Bearing

Category:

Design tools