In order to investigate cage stress in tapered roller bearings, a dynamic analysis tool considering both the six degrees of freedom of motion of the rollers and cage and the elastic deformation of the cage was developed. Cage elastic deformation is equipped using a component-mode-synthesis (CMS) method. Contact forces on the elastically deforming surfaces of the cage pocket are calculated at all node points of finite-elements on it. The location and pattern of the boundary points required for the component-mode-synthesis method were examined by comparing cage stresses in a static condition of pocket forces and constraints calculated by using the finite-element and the CMS methods. These results indicated that one boundary point lying at the center on each bar is appropriate for the effective dynamic analysis model focusing on the cage stress, especially at the pocket corners of the cages, which are actually broken. A behavior measurement of a polyamide cage in a tapered roller bearing was conducted for validating the analysis model. It was confirmed in both the experiment and analysis that the cage whirled under a large axial load condition and the cage center oscillated in a small amplitude under a small axial load condition. In the analysis, the authors discussed the four models including elastic bodies having a normal eigenmode of 0, 8 or 22, and rigid-body. There were small differences among the cage center loci of the four models. These two cages having normal eigenmodes of 0 and rigid-body whirled with imperceptible fluctuations. At least approximately 8 normal eigenmodes of cages should be introduced to conduct a more accurate dynamic analysis although the effect of the number of normal eigenmodes on the stresses at the pocket corners was insignificant. From the above, it was concluded to be appropriate to introduce one boundary point lying at the center on each pocket bar of cages and approximately 8 normal eigenmodes to effectively introduce the cage elastic deformations into a dynamic analysis model.
