Study on oil film pressure distribution and load capacity of textured rolling bearings

Purpose The purpose of this study is to reveal the tribological performance of the textured rolling bearing. Design/methodology/approach In the present study, the oil film pressure distribution and load capacity analysis method are established, which integrate the micro-texture model and Hydrodynamic lubrication (HL) methods. The tribological performances of the textured rolling bearing under the various working condition, texture dimension and texture type are investigated systematically. Findings The results show that the oil film load capacity increases with the increase in the texture size. As the texture depth increases, the oil film load capacity increases first and then decreases, and then the load capacity is the largest at the texture depth range of 3 to 5 µm. In addition, the oil film load capacity of the matching pairs, such as Si4N3-Si4N3, GCr15- Si4N3 and GCr15-GCr15 are compared; the results show that the cases of using ceramic material can improve oil film load capacity of textured rolling bearing. Originality/value The current manuscript can be useful for supporting the reliability and life research of textured rolling bearing. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-02-2020-0055