ME/MF F241:

MACHINE DESIGN & DRAWING

Design of Rolling
Element Bearings
BITS Pilani Dr. Srinivasa Prakash Regalla
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Hyderabad Campus
Learning Outcomes

Bearing types
Bearing life
Bearing load(F)-life(L) trade off at constant reliability
Bearing survival: the reliability(R)-life(L) trade-off
Load(F)-life(L) –reliability(R) trade-off
Combined radial (Fr) and thrust (Fa) loading

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus

Rolling Element Bearings, Types and Parts:
• Rolling element bearings are two types:
– Ball bearings (balls are the rolling elements)
– Roller bearings (cylinders are the rolling elements)
Different types of ball bearings:
Different types of roller bearings

a) Straight roller
b) Tapered roller, thrust
c) Spherical roller, thrust
d) Needle
e) Tapered roller (both radial
and thrust)
f) Steep-angle tapered roller
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The concepts of:

(1) Design as Selection from Catalogue
(2) Trade-off among design parameters
Bearing load (F) - Life (L) trade-off at constant (rated, 90%) reliability (R):

1/ a
FL =constant

a=3 for ball bearings

a=10/3 for roller bearings

Experimentally
obtained data
plotted, for 90%
reliability

Rating Life
Rating life

Rating life for different manufacturers:

• SKF: 106 revolutions
• Timken: 90(10)6 revolutions
•The rating life is a term sanctioned by the Anti-friction
Bearing Manufacturers Association (AFBMA)
• “the rating life of a group of nominally identical ball or roller
bearings is defined as the number of revolutions (or hours at
a constant speed) that 90% of the group of bearings will
achieve or exceed before the failure criterion develops.”
•For Timken company, the criterion is a wear area of 6.5
mm2.
Contd.

Desired Load=FD

1 1 Rating Load=C10
F1L1 a  F2 L2 a

Desired Rating
Life=LD Life=L10
Associating the load F1 with C10, the catalogue rating that you need to look at, and
the life measure in revolutions L1 with the L10, which is the manufacturer specific
quantity, we can write,

C10 L10   FD LD 

1/ a 1/ a

Here FD and LD refer to the design quantities for the bearing to be selected.
If we want to specify in the life hours, then we can write, rpm (nR & nD) values:

C10 LR nR 60  FD LD nD 60

1/ a 1/ a

What the different terms in the above equation mean? 

Contd.

C10 LR nR 60  FD LD nD 60

1/ a 1/ a

Catalog rating, kN Desired speed in RPM

Rating life in hours Desired life in hours

Rating speed in RPM Desired radial load, kN

Inverting the equation, LD nD 60 1/ a

Catalogue load rating= C10  FD ( )
LR nR 60
Manufacturers’ Catalogues
We will use two abridged catalogues:
 Ball bearing catalogue (contains two types of
ball bearings, 02-series deep groove and
angular contact)
 Roller bearing catalogue (contains 02 series
and 03 series)
 We will use the same catalogues for both SKF
and Timken; only the rated life will be used
differently.
L10 for SKF = 10^6 revolutions
L10 for Timken = 90*10^6 revolutions
The coding method for standard bearings:

02 bearings means…

The abridged catalogues that we will use contain a selected mix

of bearings with different bore, OD and width sizes.
Shoulder dimensions:

What ds and dH in the

catalogues mean…

The ds shoulder dimensions

helps locate the inner ring
and dH helps locate the
outer ring.

The ds must be machined

on the shaft and dH must be
made available in the
casing
Example:

The SKF rates its rolling contact bearings as 106

revolutions whereas Timken rates as 90*(106)
revolutions. Select a ball bearing for a motorcycle
for a life of 5000 hours to work at a speed of 1800
RPM under a radial load of 3000 N with a
reliability of 90% from the SKF catalogue.
Solution:

 5000180060 
1/ a
 LD nD 60 
1/ 3

C10  FD    3000   24429.76 N  24.43 kN

 
6
 LR nR 60  10
From the table 11-2, for the above load rating, the nearest ball bearing is 35 mm
bore, 72 mm OD, 17 mm width, 1 mm fillet radius, 41 mm shaft diameter and 65
mm housing shoulder diameter (it has C10 of 25.5 kN).
Bearing load (F) - Life (L) - reliability (R) three-way relationship
(What if more or less than 90% reliability is desired?):
Using the Weibull distribution, along
any constant load line (horizontal
line in the graph on the right):
xA= x0
x  x0 b
R  exp[( ) ]
  x0
R=reliability
x=life measure dimensionless variate,
L/L10
x0=guaranteed, or minimum value of
the variate
=characteristic parameter corresponding to the 63.2121 percentile value of the
variate; b= shape parameter that controls the skewness

x  x0 b
F  1  R  1  exp[(
Failure (not force)
probability = ) ]
  x0
Contd. 1 1
FB L  FD LDa
B
a

1 1
FB xB  FD xDa
a x A= x 0
1
x Da
 FB  FD 1
xB a
Along a constant load line (AB),

  x  x b 
RD  exp   B 0
 
    x0  
1/ b
 1 
Solving xB , xB  x0    x0  ln 
 RD 
substituting 1 1/ a
xDa  xD 
FB  C10  FD  FD  1/ b 
 x0    x0 ln1 / RD  
1
xB a
Revisit to the previous example:

• The SKF rates its rolling contact bearings as 106 revolutions whereas
Timken rates as 90*(106) revolutions. Select a ball bearing for a
motorcycle for a life of 5000 hours to work at a speed of 1800 RPM
under a radial load of 3000 N, now with a reliability of 95% from the
SKF catalogue. The pure radial load is not steady and hence use an
application factor (AF) of 1.5. Use Weibull distribution and Weibull
parameters, guaranteed or minimum value of the dimensionless variate x
as x0=0.02, characteristic parameter minus the minimum guaranteed
value as (-x0)=4.439 and the shape parameter as b=1.483.
Solution: desired value of the dimensionless variate
xD=L/L10=(60*LD*nD)/(60*LR*nR) = (60*5000*1800)/(106)=540
This means that the design life is to be 540 times the L10 life. Hence the
necessary C10 is
13
 540 
C10  (1.5)(3000)  1 1.483 
 43236 N  43.24 kN
 0.02  4.4391  0.95 
From the table 11-2, for the above load rating, the nearest ball bearing is 55 mm
bore, 100 mm OD, 21 mm width, 1.5 mm fillet radius, 63 mm shaft diameter and
605 mm housing shoulder diameter. The C10 itself is 43.6 kN.
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Including axial load Fa

* The concept of equivalent radial load,
Fe
Two different applications having and not having a thrust load:

No thrust load

Thrust load present

Derivation of Equivalent Load,
Fe
 Purpose is to find the
equivalent radial load Fe,
that would do the same
damage as that done by the
existing radial and thrust
loads together.

 The V is the rotation factor.

V=1 for inner ring rotation,
V=1.2 for outer ring rotation.

 The non-dimensionalized
load at failure (Fe/VFr) was
plotted against the non-
dimensionalized axial load
(Fa)
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Derivation of Equivalent Load,
Fe

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus

Derivation of Equivalent Load, Fe:

Fe Fe
 1 when VF  e
VFr r

Fe Fa when Fe  e
 X Y VFr
VFr VFr
Intercept on vertical axis is X; Slope = Y.
Generalizing for both zones,

Fe  X iVFr  Yi Fa
For horizontal line zone, i=1 and for
inclined line zone, i=2.
Table 11-1 in textbook gives the values of
Xi and Yi.
e
The Interpolation Based Extraction of “e” and “Y2” from Table
You need to estimate the Fa/Co to enter the table to both check whether Fa/VFr > e
and, if yes, to extract Y2.
THE ITERATIVE SOLUTION METHOD WITH BOTH Fr AND Fa
• Calculate xD.
Iteration-0:
• Ignore Fa, and for FD=Fe=V*Fr, find the C10 as well as C0 from catalogue for given
reliability. C0 is the bearing’s static load catalog rating.
• Find Fa/C0.
• Find “e” from Table 11-1 using interpolation for this Fa/C0.
• For this Fa/C0, is Fa/(VFr) > “e”?
• If No, ignore Fa, solution ends. C10=(C10)0 Is the final selection of bearing.
• If Yes, Assign (C10)0 = C10 and (C0)0 = C0. Go for next iteration.
Iteration-1:
• Find (Y2)1 value. Interpolation may be needed.
• Estimate the equivalent load (Fe). Calculate the desired load (FD)1=af(Fe)1.
• Calculate the new C10 value from Trade-off equation with (FD)1 .
• Is C10 > (C10)0 ?
• If No, then (C10)0 is the final. Solution ends.
• If Yes, find (C10)1 and (C0)1 from catalogue. Go for another iteration.
Iteration-2:
• Find (Y2)2 value. Interpolation may be needed.
• Estimate the equivalent load (Fe)2 Calculate the desired load (FD)2=af(Fe)2.
• Calculate the new C10 value from Trade-off equation with (FD)2 .
• Is C10 > (C10)1 ?
• If No, then (C10)1 is the final. Solution ends.
• If Yes, find (C10)2 and (C0)2 from catalogue. Go for another iteration…and so on.
RELIABILITY GOAL OF THE MECHANICAL SYSTEM

• The combined reliability goal is normally specified, say,

Rt. It is the for the shaft mounted on those bearings.
• Then each of the two bearings, if both of them are same
type, must possess a reliability of:
Rt  RA  RB
If RA  RB  R,  Rt  R  R  R 2or R  Rt
e.g., Rt  0.95,
R  0.95  0.9746
Thus, R  Rt

A
B
Example Design Problem:

A shaft is rotating at 800 rpm while supported on one

angular contact ball bearing at each end. Each of
these ball bearings needs to work at a reliability of
95% involving light impact loads so as to justify an
application factor of 1.2. The desired life of the
bearing to provide day long continuous service is 50
kh. The radial load is 3.5 kN and axial load is 2 kN on
each bearing due to various machine elements
supported on the shaft. Select a suitable SKF ball
bearing from the manufacturer’s catalog that can
serve the above requirements. Assume that the inner
ring is rotating.

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus
Example problem:

The worm shaft shown in part a of

the figure transmits 1.35 hp at 600
rpm. A static force analysis gave the
results shown in part b of the figure.
Bearing A is to be an angular contact
ball bearing mounted to take the
555-lbf thrust load. The bearing at B
is to take only the radial load, so a
straight roller bearing will be
employed. Use an application factor
of 1.3, a desired life of 25 kh, and a
reliability goal, combined of 0.99.
Specify each bearing.
Exercise Problem:
An angular-contact, inner ring rotating, 02-series ball bearing is required for an
application in which the life requirement is 50000 h at 480 rev/min. The design
radial load is 2745. The application factor is 1.4. The reliability goal is 0.90. Find the
multiple of rating life xD required and the catalog rating C10 with which to enter
Table 11–2. Choose a bearing and write down all of its specifications. Also
estimate, the actually chosen ball bearing, the actual existing reliability in service.