Abstract—Tapered roller bearings are the bearings that can take large axial forces (i.e., they are good thrust bearings) and also sustain large radial forces. Tapered roller bearings historically have been used in low speed applications. There has been a great deal of interest in recent years in evaluating the usage of tapered roller bearings at high speeds where ball bearings are normally used. The major benefit of using a tapered roller bearing is reduced size and weight. Tapered roller bearings have a significantly larger load capacity than ball bearings hence smaller bearing could be used to carry the same load. A rule of thumb is that a tapered roller bearing can carry two times the load of a similar size ball bearing. Basic tapered roller bearings consist of tapered rollers that are arranged between inner and outer rings having conical raceways. The inner and outer ring of a tapered roller bearing is commonly referred to as a cone and a cup respectively. When a tapered roller bearing is subjected to a radial load, the tapered rollers contact with mating raceways and compressive stresses at the roller ends tend to be substantially higher than those at the center of contact. This phenomenon of stress concentration is known as edge loading. In this bearing the radius of rollers are reduced in the order of micrometers to avoid edge loading. This modified geometry is called crowning. The fatigue life of a tapered roller bearing is heavily influenced by crowning profile of the roller. In the present study, the straight and crowning profiles of the roller of tapered roller bearing model is modeled by CATIA-V5 tool and meshing of the same is done by using HYPERMESH tool. The finite element analysis of contact pressure distribution is analyzed by using ABAQUS tool.

Index Terms—Tapered roller bearing, Edge loading, Crowning, Contact pressure

Cite: Puneethkumar M V and Sunil S, "Analysis of Contact Pressure Distribution of the Straight and Crowning Profiles of Tapered Roller Bearing," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol.3, No.4, pp. 483-492, October 2014.