Analytical Estimation of Maximal Fatigue Loads in Cylindrical Roller Bearings

The limited time of usage and damage of rolling bearings is mainly attributed to the cyclic loads appearing during their work. As it is well-known these loads are distributed over the small contact area, which leads to the relatively high values of contact loads and stresses in the vicinity of the contact zone. This work is a proposal of the application of analytical formulas describing the stress distributions in the contact region and well-established multi-axial fatigue hypothesis in the estimation of fatigue loads of certain roller bearings. Additionally, the analytically calculated stresses are verified by means of the numerical results obtained with the use of finite element approximation.