Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15

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Tribology International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/triboint

Heat generation modeling of ball bearing based on internal load distribution

Chao Jin, Bo Wu n, Youmin Hu
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, State Key Laboratory for Digital Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Luoyu Road 1037, Hongshan District,
Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In the operation of a machine tool (MT), the frictions in ball bearings entail sudden and violent heating
Received 20 April 2011 of the balls which dominants its thermal deformation, and subsequently results in degradation of its
Received in revised form accuracy and performance. Modeling of the heat generation in a bearing is a quite difficult job because
13 August 2011
of the constantly changing characteristics. In this paper, an analytical approach was proposed to
Accepted 30 August 2011
calculate the heat generation rate of supporting bearing in a ball–screw system of the MT, with
Available online 1 October 2011
consideration of the operating conditions, such as rotation speed and external loads of the machine
Keywords: tool. The influences of operating conditions to internal load distribution, contact angles and heat
Ball bearing generation rate of ball bearings were analyzed. The friction torque due to the applied load and the
Heat generation
sliding torque within the contact area were discussed in detail. Experiments were carried out in a high-
Thermal dynamics
speed ball–screw system to verify the validity of the presented analytical method. The work described
Ball–screw system
in this paper can be seen as a foundation for the accuracy thermal modeling and thermal dynamic
analysis of the ball–screw system in the machine tools.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction or other mechatronics instruments where the precision ball bearing

The demands of high-precision machine tools and three coordi-
nate measuring machines are rapidly increasing in response to the
development of precision machining technology which requires high-
precision and high productivity. Research on high-speed precision MT
can be approached on the main spindle and the ball–screw system.
A high-speed precision ball–screw system reduces non-cutting oper-
ating time and tool replacement time, which makes machining
processes more economical. As main parts of high-speed precision
ball–screw system, there are many joints existing in the supporting
ball bearings, such as the interfaces between the bearing and the
shaft, the bearing and the bearing support and so on. When two
surfaces are in contact, the presence of contact surfaces produces
contact friction at the joint, no matter how much the pressure
between the surfaces is. The friction in ball bearings entails a sudden
and violent heating of the balls that can have very detrimental effects.
The increase of temperature generated by these phenomena can
involve mechanical micro-deformations and an overheating of the
cooling fluid (especially when dealing with cryogenic fluids). Such a
temperature heating of ball bearing plays a significant role in the
thermal characteristics of the ball–screw system, causing serious
thermal deformation that subsequently degrades the accuracy of MT
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 27 87556213; fax: þ86 27 87559004.
E-mail address: bowu@mail.hust.edu.cn (B. Wu).
are used.
Ever since the early 1960s, the importance of thermal effects
on the accuracy of machine tools has been increasingly felt [1].
It has been reported that thermal errors account for 40–70% of the
total errors arising from various error sources. Significant research
has since taken place in the study of machine tool thermal behavior.
Researchers have considered a number of ways of reducing thermal
error, including the thermally symmetric design of a structure,
separation of the heat sources from the main body of the machine
tool, cooling of the structure, compensation for the thermal error and
so forth [2–10]. From the researches thus far, it can be seen that most
of the work carried out is based on the principle of directly mapping
the thermal error against the temperature of critical machine
elements irrespective of the operating conditions [3–6]. The different
operating parameters used were just a means to generate varying
thermal states on the machine. But recently, Ramesh et al. [8],
justified the point that the thermal error of a machine tool was
strongly dependent upon the specific operating parameters and
conditions that the machine was put through in order to generate
a specific thermal condition. In that case, the theoretical accurate
modeling of thermal error becomes indispensable.
In machine tool operations the major heat sources include the
heat generated by the cutting process and the heat from bearings.
It is assumed that the majority of cutting heat is taken away by
coolant. Therefore, the heat generated by bearings is the dominant
heat causing thermal deformations. The calculation of temperature
in the ball bearing under friction has been of great scientific interest

0301-679X/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.triboint.2011.08.019
 C. Jin et al. / Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15 9

Nomenclature F external loads

B ball attitude angle
D diameter of the ball w/n rotating speed
rb radius of the ball M total frictional torque of the bearing
0
r radius of the raceway groove curvature Hf heat generation rate
0
f r /D Q ball load
B fi þfo  1
A1 axial distance between the position of inner and outer Subscripts
raceway groove curvature centers
A2 radial distance between the position of inner and A refer to axial direction
outer raceway groove curvature centers r refer to radial direction
a0 free contact angle i refer to inner raceway
d displacement of the bearing o refer to outer raceway
a contact angle of ball– raceway contact m refer to orbital motion
d normal deformation of the raceway groove curvature R refer to rolling element
Fc centrifugal force
Mg gyroscopic moment

over the past few decades. Since the pioneering works concerning 2. Distribution of internal loading in a ball bearing
semi-infinite solids which are adiabatic outside the region heated by
a moving heat source. The case of an elliptic moving heat source on 2.1. Deflection of ball bearing under applied load
an insulated semi-infinite body has been studied by Bejan [11], Tian
and Kennedy [12] with asymptotic solutions. The analytical solu- The ball baring can be illustrated in its simple form as shown
tions are often difficult to get because of: (i) the non-homogeneous in Fig. 1. The ability of a ball bearing to carry load depends in large
boundary conditions, (ii) the relative motion and (iii) the small size measure on the osculation of the rolling elements and raceway,
of the contact region in relation to other dimensions of solid. From which is the rate of radius of rolling element (rb) to that of the
0 0
available studies [13–15], it is clearly shown that accurate thermal raceway in a direction transverse to the direction of rolling (ri, ro).
dynamic modeling of the heat source is quite difficult because of the Also from Fig. 1, it can be seen that the free contact angle is made
constantly changing characteristics during the operation processes: by the line passing through the points of contact of the ball and
the thermal inertia, the operating conditions and the complexity of both raceways and a plane perpendicular to the bearing axis of
the machine tool structure, etc. Because the determination of the rotation. The free contact angle a0 can be described as follows:
temperatures in a bearing requires a good knowledge of the thermal  r r r 
contact parameters, the researches so far reported have therefore a0 ¼ cos1 1 o i b ð1Þ
BD
been unable to provide satisfactory, convinced and precision results
In a ball bearing, depending on the contact angles, ball gyroscopic
on the accurate modeling of the heat source. In the course of this
moments and ball centrifugal forces can be of significant magnitude
research, the finite element method (FEM) and the finite difference
such that inner raceway contact angles tend to increase and out
method (FDM) have often been employed to estimate the thermal
raceway contact angles tend to decrease. Under zero load the
behavior of machine tools. However, there are also some significant
centers of the raceway groove curvature radius are separated by a
differences between estimated and experimental results, which are
distance BD defined by (as shown in Fig. 1 a)
attributed to the facts that it is difficult to establish the boundary
conditions because of the complex shape of the structure and the BD ¼ ðr 0i þ r 0o 2r b Þ ¼ ðf i þ f o 1ÞD ð2Þ
varying heat generation rate [13–15].On the other hand, many
where rb is the radius of ball, while D is the diameter of the ball. f is
authors have already numerically solved ball bearings problems, 0
defined by f¼r /D.
such as loads [16,17], stiffness matrix [18–20] and angles [21], using
analytical methods. However, the computational methods used in
these works are unhelpful for determination of heat generation rate
of ball bearings.
In this study, we present an analytical method to calculate the
heat generation rate of supporting bearing in a kind of ball–screw
system which is used widely in machine tools and mechatronics
instruments. The operating conditions which were not regarded
by other researchers before, such as rotation speed and external
loads, are taken into account for calculating heat generated by the
bearings. The determination of bearing element torques is mainly
focused on both of the friction torque due to applied load and the
sliding torque at the contact area. In Section 2, the distribution of
internal loading in a ball bearing is analyzed. Section 3 discusses
calculation of the friction torque and sliding torque in ball bearing.
And more, some experiments and testbed used for these test are
analyzed in Section 4 and the difference between theoretic analytic
method and experiment are discussed. Finally in Section 5, we
conclude the results of this study and give the prospect research in Fig. 1. Schematic of ball bearing. (a) Bearing parameters. (b) Angular position of
the future. rolling element.
10 C. Jin et al. / Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15

Fig. 3. Ball loading at angular position Cj.

Fig. 2. Position of ball bearing center and raceway groove curvature centers. 1:5
Q ij ¼ K i dij ð9Þ

From Fig. 3, considering the equilibrium of forces in the

Under an applied load, a centrifugal force acts on the ball, and
horizontal and vertical directions
then because the inner and outer raceway contact angles are
dissimilar, the line of action between raceway groove curvature Mgj
radius centers is not collinear with BD, but is discontinuous as Q ij sin aij Q oj sin aoj  ðlij cos aij loj cos aoj Þ ¼ 0 ð10Þ
D
indicated by Fig. 2. It is assumed in Fig. 2 that the outer raceway
groove curvature center is fixed in space and the inner raceway M gj
Q ij cos aij Q oj cos aoj þ ðlij sin aij loj sin aoj Þ þF cj ¼ 0 ð11Þ
groove curvature center moves relative to that fixed center. More- D
over, the ball center shifts by virtue of the dissimilar contact angles.
With (5)–(7), (10) and (11), X1j, X2j, aij and aoj may be solved
simultaneously at each ball angular location once values for da
2.2. Distribution of internal loading and dr are assumed. The Newton–Raphson method can be used
for solution of simultaneous nonlinear Eq. [22].
In according with the relative axial displacement of the inner The centrifugal force mentioned above is calculated as follows:
and outer rings da, the axial distance between the position of
1
inner and outer raceway groove curvature centers at any ball is F cj ¼ dm o2jm ð12Þ
2
0
A1j ¼ BD sin a þ da ð3Þ
in which dm is the pitch diameter of the bearing. Substituting the
Further, in according with the relative radial displacement of identity w2jm ¼(wjm/w)2w2 into (12), the following equation for
the ring centers dr, the radial distance between the position of the centrifugal force is obtained:
groove curvature centers at any ball is
1 om 2 2
F cj ¼ dm w ð13Þ
A2j ¼ BD cos a0 þ dr cos cj ð4Þ 2 w j

New variables X1j and X2j are defined as seen from Fig. 2 Gyroscopic moment at each ball location may be described as
8 follows [23]:
X 2j
>
> cos aoj ¼ ðf o 0:5ÞD þ doj
>
> o  o 
>
> m R
>
> sin aoj ¼ X 1j Mgj ¼ J w2 sin b ð14Þ
< ðf o 0:5ÞD þ doj w j w j
A2j X 2j ð5Þ
>
> cos aij ¼ ðf 0:5ÞD wm is the orbital speed of the ball and wR is the rotation speed of
>
> i þ dij
>
>
>
> A1j X 1j bearing element. wm/w, wR/w and b are given as follows. respec-
: sin aij ¼ ðf 0:5ÞD þ dij
i tively [23]
Using the Pythagorean theorem, it can be seen from Fig. 2 that sin ao D
tan b ¼ , r¼ ð15Þ
2 2 2 cos ao þ r dm
ðA1j X 1j Þ þðA2j X 2j Þ ½ðf i 0:5ÞD þ dij  ¼ 0 ð6Þ
wR
¼
X 21j þ ðX 22j ½ðf o 0:5ÞD þ doj 2 ¼ 0 ð7Þ w
1
Considering the plane passing through the bearing axis with ðððcos ao þtan b sin ao Þ=ð1 þr cosao ÞÞ þ ððcos ai þtan b sinai Þ=ð1r cosai ÞÞÞrcos b
the center of a ball located at azimuth Cj, the load diagram of ð16Þ
Fig. 3 can be obtained. If ‘‘outer raceway control’’ is approximated
at a given ball location, the ball gyroscopic moment is resisted
wm 1r cos ai
entirely by friction force at the ball-outer raceway contacts, then ¼ ð17Þ
w 1 þ cosðai ao Þ
in Fig. 3, lij ¼0 and loj ¼2.
The normal ball loads in accordance with normal contact Using the (15) and (16), (14) can be simplified to
deformations are as follows:
o 2
m
1:5
Q oj ¼ K o doj ð8Þ Mgj ¼ J=r n w2 sin ao ð18Þ
w j
 C. Jin et al. / Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15 11

To find the values of da and dr, it remains only to establish the 3.2. Viscous friction torque
conditions of equilibrium applying to the entire bearing. These are
For bearings that operate at moderate speeds and under non-
Z 
X 
lij Mgj excessive load, the viscous friction torque can be empirically
Fa Q ij sin aij  cos aij ¼0 ð19Þ
j¼1
D expressed as follows:
3
Z   Mv ¼ 107 f 0 ðn0 nÞ2=3 dm , n0 n Z2000 ð24Þ
X lij Mgj
Fr Q ij cos aij þ sin aij cos cj ¼ 0 ð20Þ
j¼1
D
3
Mv ¼ 160  107 f 0 dm , n0 n r 2000 ð25Þ
where Fa and Fr represent axial and radial external loads, respectively,
in which n0 is the kinematic viscosity of lubricate oil given in
Z is the ball number. Having computed values of X1j, X2j, aij and aoj at
centistokes, and n is the revolution speed of the bearing in rpm. In
each ball position and taking Fa and Fr as input conditions, the values
Eqs. (24) and (25), f0 is a factor depending upon the type of bearing
of da and dr can be determined by (19) and (20). After obtaining the
and method of lubrication. For angular contact ball bearing and
primary unknown quantities da and dr, it is then necessary to repeat
grease lubrication, f0 ¼2. For grease lubrication, the viscosity–
the calculation of X1j, X2j, aij and aoj until compatible values of the
temperature characteristic of the base oil of the grease is shown in
primary unknown quantities da and dr are obtained.
Table 2.

3. Heat generation modeling of ball bearing 3.3. Contact areas in a ball bearing

In the machine tool operations the major heat sources include When two elastic bodies having smooth round surface are
the heat generated by the cutting process and the heat from press against each other, the contact area becomes elliptic. The
bearings. It is assumed that the majority of cutting heat is taken formulations that determine the semi-major and semi-minor axes
away by coolant and therefore the heat generated by bearings is of the elliptic contact area are summarized herein [24]. In the case
the dominant heat causing thermal deformations. According to of balls contacting the inner or outer raceway in the ball bearings,
Harris [23], the heat generated by a bearing can be computed by it is assumed that the angle between the two planes containing
the following equation: the principal radius of curvature of the contacting bodies is
perpendicular, and the following expressions can be derived.
Hf ¼ 1:047  104 nM ð21Þ
  1=3
3 P 1n21 1n22
where n is the rotating speed of the bearing (rpm); M is the total a ¼ an þ
4 AþB E1 E2
frictional torque of the bearing (N mm) and Hf is the heat
generated (W). The frictional torque M in (20) is a sum of three   1=3
n 3 P 1n21 1n22
torques: (1) the torque due to applied load, M1. (2) the torque due b¼b þ ð26Þ
4 AþB E1 E2
to spinning motion at contact area, Ms. (3) the torque due to viscous
friction, Mv.    
1 1 1 1 1 1
A¼ þ , B¼ 0 þ 0 ð27Þ
2 r1 r2 2 r1 r2

3.1. Friction torque due to applied load in which r1, r10 are the radius of curvature for inner or outer race
0
and groove, respectively. And r2, r2 are the radii of rolling ball.
The torque due to the applied load can be empirically approxi- Considering the bearing model shown in Fig. 1, for the contact at
0
mated by the following: inner ring side, the radius of curvature r1 of the inner groove must
be treated as negative in (27); while at the outer ring side contact,
M 1 ¼ f 1 F b dm ð22Þ 0
r1, r1 must be treated as negative.
in which Fb is dynamical equivalent load, for angular contact ball The values of an and bn are calculated as follows:
bearings, Fb ¼Fa  0.1Fr. f1 is a factor depending upon bearing design 8 2

 p  p 
and relative load. For ball bearings > I ¼ e2 hF e, 2 E e, 2 i
>
>
>
> 
>
> J ¼ e22 Eðe,ð p=2ÞÞ
F e, p2
< 1e2
f 1 ¼ zðP 0 =C 0 Þy ð23Þ ð28Þ
I A
>
> J ¼ B
>
>  
where P0 is static equivalent load, and C0 is basic static load rating >
> 1=3
>
: an ¼ I þ J
b ¼ an ð1e2 Þ1=2
n
which is a bearing term defined in ISO-76-2006 ‘‘Rolling bearings- p
Static load ratings’’. Table 1 gives appropriate values of z and y.
Values of C0 are generally given in manufacture’s catalogs along with in which e is the eccentricity of contact ellipse, and F (e, p/2) and E
data to enable calculation of P0. (e, p/2) are the complete elliptic integrals of the first and second,

Table 1 Table 2
Value of z and y. Viscosity–temperature characteristic of the base
oil of the grease.
Ball bearing type Nominal contact z y
angle Temperature Kinematic viscosity
(1C) (mm2/s)
Radial deep groove 01 0.006–0.004 0.55
Angular contact 30–401 0.001 0.33 25 40
Thrust 901 0.0008 0.33 30 23
Double-row, self-aligning 101 0.0001 0.40 40 20
12 C. Jin et al. / Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15

respectively. where E() is the complete elliptic integrals of the second kind
8  R as defined in the above section. According to Harris [23], the
< F e, p ¼ p=2 ð1e2 sin2 FÞ1=2 dF
2
 R
0
ð29Þ spinning-to-roll ratio is defined as follows:
: E e, p ¼ p=2 ð1e2 sin2 FÞ1=2 dF  
2 0 ws ð1 þ r cos ao Þtanðao bÞ þr sin ao
¼ ð36Þ
wm o r
Eq. (28) can be solved numerically by the Newton–Downhill
method [22], and then e can be determined, and the value of an Similarly, for an inner raceway contact
and bn can be calculated.  
ws ð1r cos ai Þtanðai bÞ þr sin ai
¼ ð37Þ
wm i r
3.4. Spinning torque at contact area
3.5. Example and calculation results
Of the many components that constitute the frictional resis-
tance to the motion of ball-raceway contact sliding is the most In order to verify the validity of the analytical method pre-
significant. In the ball-raceway elliptical contact area, consider a sented in Sections 2 and 3, the 7204AC angular-contact ball
differential area of dS as shown in Fig. 4. The normal stress on the bearings used in the experimental high-speed ball–screw system
area is given by is studied. This conventional bearing is composed of a retainer
  2  2 1=2 and steel balls. Its dimensions are D ¼3.25 mm, dm¼33.5 mm,
3Q x y 0 0
s¼ 1  ð30Þ ri ¼ro ¼ 3.445 mm, ao ¼251 and Z ¼16 balls. The bearing is sup-
2pab a b
posed to operate under the thrust load in range of 0–1000 N and
In accordance with sliding friction coefficient m, the differen- at rotate speed of 1000–15,000 rpm.
tial friction force at dS is as follows: A Matlab script was written to solve Eqs. of (6), (7), (10), (11)
  2  2 1=2 and (19) simultaneously for every load-speed combination con-
3mQ x y dition. Within these equations, which may be solved by iteration
dF ¼ 1  dS ð31Þ
2pab a b techniques, Fc and Mg are functions of wm/w and wR/w. Hence the
The friction force of (31) has a component in the y direction solution is not simple and care must be exercised to include all
dFy ¼dF cos ^; therefore the total friction force in the y direction
due to sliding is
Z þ a Z þ b½1ðx=aÞ2 1=2   2  2 1=2
3mQ x y
Fy ¼ 1  cos fdydx ð32Þ
2pab a b½1ðx=aÞ2 1=2 a b

Since the differential friction force dF does not necessarily act

at the right angles to a radius drawn from the geometrical center
of the contact ellipse, the moment of dF about the center of the
contact ellipse is
dMs ¼ r cosðfyÞdF ¼ ðx2 þ y2 Þ1=2 cosðfyÞdF ð33Þ
1
in which y ¼tan (y/x).The total friction torque about the center
of the contact ellipse is
Z þ a Z þ b½1ðx=aÞ2 1=2
3mQ
Ms ¼ ðx2 þ y2 Þ1=2
2pab a b½1ðx=aÞ2 1=2
  2  2 1=2
x y
 1  cosðfyÞdydx ð34Þ
a b
If the motion of a raceway relative to the ball was merely a Fig. 5. ai and ao vs. thrust load. 7204AC ball bearing, a1 ¼251.
spinning about the normal to the center of the contact area, all
other relative surface velocities being reduced to zero, the spin-
ning torque as determined from (34) for ^ ¼ y is given by
3mQ aE
Ms ¼ ð35Þ
8

Fig. 4. Friction force acting on area dS of the elliptical contact area. Fig. 6. Qi and Qo vs. thrust load for various speed. 7204AC ball bearing, a1¼ 251.
 C. Jin et al. / Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15
Fig. 7. da–axial deflection vs. thrust load for various speed. 7204AC ball bearing,
a0 ¼251.
Fig. 8. Friction heat generation vs. thrust load for speed 5000 rpm. 7204AC
angular contact ball bearing, greases lubrication.
variations in the iteration procedure. Based on this script, the data
of Fig. 5–7 were obtained.
In ball bearing, depending on the contact angles, ball gyroscopic
moments and ball centrifugal forces can be of significant magnitude
such that inner raceway contact angles tend to increase and out
raceway contact angles tend to decrease, just as shown in Fig. 5.
From this figure, we also see that with the load increasing, the
contact angles of the both raceway contact tend to become similar,
approaching the contact angle in static situation. With this phenom-
enon, the internal normal ball loads at the inner and outer raceway
contact become consistent, which can be seen from Fig. 6.
For calculation of heat generation rate, the following parameter of
the bearing 7204AC must be obtained from a catalog in advance:
C0 ¼7000 kN, P0 ¼0.38Fa. Fig. 8. shows heat generation rates due to
applied load, sliding motion and viscous friction for this bearing.
4. Experiments and comparisons
4.1. Experiment testbed
The experimental apparatus is shown in Fig. 9.
The experimental testbed is mainly a ball–screw system. The
ball–screw is fixed to substructure using angular contact ball bearings
13
Fig. 9. High-speed feed system for thermal dynamic analysis.
Fig. 10. Temperature measuring points on the ball–screw.
which are back to back arranged (O arrangement) at the left end. An
AC servomotor, whose maximum rotating speed is 5000 r/min, is
connected to the ball screw via elastic couplings. A servo system is
employed to control the operation of the servomotor. A hydraulic
load is applied as the load of the ball screw. By adjusting the setting
pressure of the relief valves amounted on the outlets of hydraulic
cylinder, axial load applied for the ball–screw system is adjustable
within the range of 1–4 KN. Furthermore, there is no lubricant in the
bearing housing in order to let the heat flow in the inner raceway of
ball bearings totally conduct through the ball–screw.
In order to research the thermal characteristics of ball–screw,
some other sensors and instruments are employed except for the
experimental bench. The infrared radiation thermometers with a
resolution of 0.1 1C (as shown in Fig. 10), and corresponding
intelligent thermal resistance modulators are used to measure the
temperatures of measuring points. The values of temperature
sensors are acquired by NI PXI-4351 module installed in PXI-9230
signal acquisition system.
4.2. Comparison with experiment results
Fig. 11 shows the ball–screw system of the experimental
bench. The comprehensive coefficient of heat convection with
the ambient air is as, and the temperature of the ambient air is Tf.
14 C. Jin et al. / Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15

The equation of heat conduction is 5. Conclusion

2
@ T rc @T 4as The aim of the paper was to study the heat generation rate of
¼ þ ðTT f Þ ð38Þ
@x2 k @t kd ball bearings with respect to rotational speed and load applied to
where T is the temperature of the ball–screw, which is the a feed system. Also, this paper presents an analytical method to
function of time t and the distance x. k is the thermal conductiv- calculate heat generation rate of a ball bearing based on careful
ity, d is the nominal diameter, r is the density, and c is the specific consideration of load distribution in the internal bearing ele-
heat capacity of the ball–screw. ments, as well as the changing contact angles of both the inner
For ball–screw made of steel, k¼43.3 W/m 1C, r ¼7800 kg/m3, and outer raceway contacts. Based on an iterative algorithm, it
c¼473 J/kg 1C, as ¼12.5 w/m2 1C, and d ¼32 mm, so in Eq. (35) the allows one to obtain very quickly the exact angles values to be
value of rc/k is much bigger than that of 4as/kd. Furthermore, it used in further calculations. Contact forces, pressure, deformation
can be concluded that the heat convention between environment and spin to roll ratios directly do depend on contact angles. Using
and the experiment system can be ignored, because the heat
convention is extremely small in comparison with the heat conduc-
tion through the ball screw.
Based on the theory of heat conduction, the heat flow through
the ball screw is considered to be the same as the heat generated
in the inner raceway contact if there is no lubricant solution in the
bearing housing. In the experiment, the bearing was considered as
the heat source, and the conductive heat flow Q through the ball
screw was calculated by
 
T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4
Q ¼ Sks þ ð39Þ
l12 l34

where T1, T2, T3 and T4 are the temperatures at the measuring points
shown in Fig. 11. The distances between points 1 and 2, 3 and 4 are
denoted as l12 and l34. The sectional area and the thermal conductiv-
ity of the ball screw are represented by S and ks, respectively. In the
experiments presented here, l12 ¼l34 ¼50 mm, ks ¼ 50 w/(m 1C), and
the diameter of ball screw is 32 mm. The test conditions were
shown in Table 3. The temperatures shown in Table 3 were
Fig. 12. Temperature rises of measuring points under test condition thrust load
obtained under steady-state conditions when temperature chan-
150 N and rotation speed 5000 rpm.
ged less than 70.1 1C. The temperature rises of measuring points
under different test conditions are shown in Figs. 12–14.
A comparison of the test results and the prediction values is given
in Table 3, and the agreement between both results is excellent with
the maximum relative error of 3.58% under test condition thrust load
300 N, rotation speed 3000 rpm. Therefore, it can be said that the
calculation method is applicable to the determination of heat gene-
ration of ball bearing when considering both the friction torque due
to the applied load and sliding at the contact area.

Fig. 11. Unidimensional heat transfer and temperature measuring points of a Fig. 13. Temperature rises of measuring points under test condition thrust load
ball–screw. 250 N and rotation speed 4000 rpm.

Table 3
Experiment results and comparison.

No. Thrust Rotation Temperature measured/ 1C Experiment Theoretical

load/N speed/ result calculation/
rpm (Q)/w w
T1 T2 T3 T4

1 150 5000 23.14 22.85 23.04 22.84 0.3941 0.4045

2 250 4000 25.00 24.61 24.86 24.50 0.6032 0.6129
3 300 3000 24.58 24.11 24.39 24.16 0.5630 0.5839
 C. Jin et al. / Tribology International 45 (2012) 8–15
Fig. 14. Temperature rises of measuring points under test condition thrust load
300 N and rotation speed 3000 rpm.
the method presented, the supporting ball bearings applied to
purely thrust load in a feed system are studied. Compared to the
experiment results, the introduced method shows its validity
with accuracy calculation. The work described in this paper lays a
solid foundation of the accuracy thermal modeling of the entire
feed system, and further contributes to the implementation of
thermal error compensation.
According to research of Tu and Stein [25–27], thermal
dynamics induce additional deformation of bearing elements,
which is an important work we should focus on in the future to
make the heat generation model of ball bearing more accurate.
Moreover, the work presented can be used for bearing thermal
condition monitoring in a production environment.
Acknowledgment
The work was supported by the National Key Basic Research
Program of China under Grants 2005CB724101 and 2011
CB706803, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under
Grants 50675076, 50575087, and 51075161, and the National High
Technology Research and Development Program of China under
Grant 2008AA042802.
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