Finite Element Analysis of Large Diameter Bearings Subjected to Thrust Load

Slewing ring bearings are very safety critical products and its usage ranges from tower cranes, wind mills to nuclear reactors. They have to meet the requirements exactly and perform in the environmental conditions of the application. There is no standard design procedure is available because of the number of design variables involved in this design and the dependency of the critical applications. Analysis of large diameter bearings is complex process. The evaluation of change in contact angle due to applied load is vital in order to study the load carrying capacity of large diameter bearings. Analytical and Numerical procedures have been developed to calculate various design factors such as contact angle, contact stress and deformation. The Change in Contact angle of balls determined by using FEA. The change in Contact Angle was compared with analytical, FEA and the Newton-Raphson method. The results show a good agreement with the values calculated using Hertz’s relations for deformation. The FEA method was used to get the nodal solution of Contact angle, Contact Stress and Deflection for various loading conditions. The FEA results were compared with the analytical Hertz method.