VIBRATION OF A TAPERED ROLLER BEARING WITH LOCALIZED DEFECTS ON MULTIPLE ROLLERS

Localized defects may be generated on rolling element bearing raceways and roller bodies as a result of damage. These defects can excite a tapered roller bearing into vibration. When defects exist on more than one roller, the relative locations and the phases of the rollers with defects can produce complex vibration signatures. Because gross bearing damage is more likely to affect multiple rollers than just a single roller, for rotary machine health monitoring and fault diagnosis it is important to understand the vibration characteristics created by multiple roller defects. In this paper, the vibration of a tapered roller bearing excited by localized defects on multiple rollers is studied using a 3D vibration model. The vibration characteristics exhibited in vibration waveforms and frequency spectra are analyzed both in the radial direction and in the axial direction with respect to the bearing geometry.