The importance of bearing stiffness and load when estimating the size of a defect in a rolling element bearing

The change in the static stiffness of a bearing assembly is an important discriminator when determining the size of a defect in a rolling element bearing. In this article, the force–displacement relationships for defective bearings under various static radial loadings at various cage angular positions are analytically estimated and experimentally measured and analyzed. The study shows that the applied load has a significant effect on the static stiffness variations in defective rolling element bearings. The experimental measurements of the effect of the defect size on the varying stiffness of the bearing assembly, which has not been shown previously, provides valuable knowledge for developing methods to distinguish between defective bearings with defects that are smaller or larger than one angular ball spacing. The methods and results presented here contribute to the wider experimental investigation of the effects of loadings on the varying static stiffness of defective bearings and its effects on the measured vibration signatures. A large data set was obtained and has been made publicly available.