On the Use of Rolling Element Bearings' Models in Precision Maintenance

Problem statement: Rolling element bearings form a very important part of machinery. The increasing demands on their continuous reliable operation under diverse environments make maintenance a very important step towards the efficient use of them. To this end, precision maintenance is a very useful practice, since it deals not only with finding a possible fault of a machine, but also with the identification of its cause and the suggestion of possible preventive measures and corrective actions. In order to better apply precision maintenance techniques though, it is necessary to have a very good insight of the bearings' operation. Approach: This study described how the analytical models of the operation of rolling element bearings could be used for the better utilization of precision maintenance in practice. It also presented briefly these analytical models, together with a detailed description of how their results can be used in precision maintenance practice. Results: The results of a typical example were given, which showed that the proposed analysis gives an insight of the bearing operation, necessary for the better understanding of the root cause of possible failures. Conclusion: This research come to the conclusion that the knowledge of the origin of failures that could be the result of bearing's theoretical models, could be very helpful for the application of precision maintenance practices, since it could lead to the correction of the cause of each failure and thus the bearing will not fail again for the same reason.