ARTICLE IN PRESS

International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 52 (2010) 1193–1201

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International Journal of Mechanical Sciences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmecsci

A theoretical model to predict the effect of localized defect on vibrations

associated with ball bearing
M.S. Patil a,n, Jose Mathew b, P.K. Rajendrakumar b, Sandeep Desai c
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum 590008, Karnataka, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Calicut 673601, Kerala, India
c
Application Engineering, Automotive Business Unit, SKF India Limited, Pune 411033, Maharashtra, India

a r t i c l e in fo abstract

Article history: The paper presents an analytical model for predicting the effect of a localized defect on the ball bearing
Received 10 May 2009 vibrations. In the analytical formulation, the contacts between the ball and the races are considered as
Received in revised form non-linear springs. The contact force is calculated using the Hertzian contact deformation theory.
4 March 2010
A computer program is developed to simulate the defect on the raceways with the results presented in
Accepted 17 May 2010
the time domain and frequency domain. The model yields both the frequency and the acceleration of
Available online 27 May 2010
vibration components of the bearing. The effect of the defect size and its location has been investigated.
Keywords: Numerical results for 6305 deep groove ball bearing have been obtained and discussed. The results
Contact deformation obtained from the experiments have also been presented.
Condition monitoring
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Bearing defects

1. Introduction various parameters such as loading and the transmission path

Rolling element bearings are essential parts of rotating
machinery. A machine could be seriously jeopardized if faults
occur in bearings during service. Early detection of the defects in
bearings, therefore, is crucial for the prevention of damage to the
other parts of a machine. Bearing defects may be categorized as
localized and distributed. The localized defects include cracks, pits
and spalls caused by fatigue on rolling surfaces. The other
category, i.e., distributed defects, includes surface roughness,
waviness and misaligned races and off size rolling elements.
These defects may be due to manufacturing errors and operating
conditions. Hence, condition monitoring of bearings has been
considered to be an essential and integral part of any modern
manufacturing facility. Adequate monitoring predicts the possi-
bility of a breakdown before it actually occurs. Different methods
are used for detection and diagnosis of the bearing defects. They
may be classified as vibration measurement, acoustic measure-
ment, temperature measurement and wear analysis. Vibration
based condition monitoring has been the most widely used
technique. Both time domain and frequency-domain methods are
used for monitoring the health of bearings.
Theoretical models of vibration generation mechanism in
bearings due to single and multiple defects, and the influence of
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: + 91 831 2405500; fax: + 91 831 2441909.
E-mail addresses: mspatil_git@rediffmail.com (M.S. Patil), josmat@nitc.ac.in
(J. Mathew), pkrkumar@nitc.ac.in (P.K. Rajendrakumar), sandeep.desai@skf.com
(S. Desai).
help in enhancing our understanding of the vibration generated at
the onset of incipient failure. The first attempt for obtaining
dynamic models of rolling element bearings occurred in the mid-
1970s. An analytical formulation for the generalized ball, cage and
race motion in ball bearings has been presented by Gupta [1]. The
model proposed by McFadden and Smith [2,3] describes the
vibration produced by a single point defect and multiple defects
in the bearings. The initial model developed by McFadden
considers a series of impulses representing the transient force to
model the vibration produced when the rolling elements
encounter the point defect. As the bearing rotates, the impulses
occur periodically with a frequency which is dependent on the
location of the defect. A mathematical model for ball bearing
vibrations with distributed defects was proposed by Meyer et al.
[4]. The distributed defects are simulated and the spectral
components resulting from these defects have been predicted.
A model presented by Tandon and Choudhury [5,6] predicted
frequency spectrum having peaks at characteristic defect fre-
quencies. Pulses of finite width have been used to model the
defect. The height of the pulse is used to represent the extent and
the severity of the damage. The results were obtained for different
shape of the pulses. A model to simulate the force variation and
impact formation when the rolling elements roll over a local
defect was proposed by Kiral and Karagulle [7]. The dynamic load
of the rolling element bearing was modeled using a Visual Basic
programming language and the vibration spectrum was obtained
using a finite element method (FEM) package. The proposed
method could be used to determine the optimum sensor location.
Su et al. [8] extended the original work by McFadden to

0020-7403/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2010.05.005
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1194 M.S. Patil et al. / International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 52 (2010) 1193–1201

Nomenclature W radial load (N)

x, y deflections along X and Y axes (m)
d ball diameter (m) Z number of balls
D pitch diameter of bearing (m) z1, z2, z3, z4 state space variable
c damping factor (N s/m) dr radial deflection (m)
Cr radial clearance (m) dn dimensionless contact deformation
F Hertzian contact force (N) Sr curvature sum
FX, FY, FXD, FYD components of restoring force in X and Y f length of defect in degrees.
directions (N) yi initial position of the defect (deg)
HD height of defect (m) o shaft speed (rad/s)
K, Kp, Ki, Ko load–deformation factor (N/m3/2) oc cage speed (rad/s)
M mass of the rotor (kg) BPFI ball pass frequency inner (Hz)
n load–deflection exponent BPFO ball pass frequency outer (Hz)
Ns shaft speed (rpm)

characterize the vibrations measured from bearings subjected to
various loading conditions and with defects located on any of the
bearing components. The main development of the work was the
determination of the periodic characteristics of various loading
and transmission path effects and their influence on the vibration.
These effects are generally associated with the misalignment or
dynamic unbalance of the shaft, the axial or radial loading,
preload and manufacturing imperfections. Aktürk [9] presented a
mathematical model consisting of inner race, outer race and ball
waviness. The effect of number of waves on the amplitude of
vibration and the frequency was studied and concluded that for
outer race waviness, most severe vibrations occur when the ball
passage frequency (BPF) and its harmonics coincide with the
natural frequency.
This work is focused towards the development of a theoretical
model to study the effect of defect size on bearing vibration.
Instead of using periodically repeated impulse function for the
impulse due to defect, the defect itself is modeled as a part of
sinusoidal wave. The model makes it possible to detect the
frequency spectrum having peaks at the bearing defect frequen-
cies. The amplitudes at these frequencies are also predicted.
Comparison with the experimental values shows that the model
helps to study the effect of defect size and predicts the spectral
components. For the experimental work, artificial defects are
induced separately on the outer race and inner race of single row
deep groove ball bearings using electric discharge machine. The
vibration signals from the bearing are picked up using an
accelerometer. The data acquisition system has relevant software
to acquire and store the data in the computer. The data are further
processed using MATLAB software.
considered as a spring mass system, in which the outer race is
fixed in a rigid support and the inner race is fixed rigidly with the
motor shaft. Elastic deformation between raceways and rolling
elements produces a non-linear phenomenon between force and
deformation, which is obtained by the Hertzian theory. The rolling
element bearing is considered as non-linear contact spring as
shown in Fig. 1.
In the model, the outer race of the bearing is fixed in a rigid
support and inner race is held rigidly on the shaft. A constant
radial load acts on the bearing. The contact force is calculated
using the Hertzian contact deformation theory.
2.1. Calculating the contact force
According to the Hertzian contact deformation theory, the
non-linear relation load–deformation is given by [10]
n
F ¼ K dr ð1Þ
where K is the load–deflection factor or constant for Hertzian
contact elastic deformation, dr the radial deflection or contact
deformation and n the load–deflection exponent; n¼3/2 for ball
bearing and 10/9 for roller bearing.
The load–deflection factor K depends on the contact geometry.
The ball and the raceway contact are as shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b).

2. System modeling

To study the rolling element bearing structural vibration

characteristics, the rolling element–raceway contact can be

Fig. 2. (a) Contact in the plane normal to plane of rotation and (b) contact in the
Fig. 1. Rolling elements replaced by spring and dash-pot. plane of rotation.
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M.S. Patil et al. / International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 52 (2010) 1193–1201 1195

P
Total deflection between two raceways is the sum of the where r is the curvature sum which is calculated using the
approaches between the rolling elements and each raceway. radii of curvature in a pair of principal planes passing through
Using this we get the point contact. dn is the dimensionless contact deformation
" #n obtained using curvature difference (Refer Table 6.1, Essential
1 Concepts of Rolling Bearing Technology , Tedric Harris, Taylor and
K¼  1=n  1=n ð2Þ
1=Ki þ 1=Ko Francis Group, 2007). The value of K for 6305 bearing is
8.37536  109 N/m3/2.
Ki and Ko inner and outer raceways to ball contact stiffness, The schematic diagram for determining the radial deflection is
respectively, which are obtained using shown in Fig. 3.
X If x and y are the deflections along X- and Y-axis and Cr is the
Kp ¼ 2:15  105 r1=2 ðd Þ3=2 ð3Þ internal radial clearance, the radial deflection at the ith ball, at any
angle yi is given by [(x cos yi + y sin yi)  Cr].
Substituting in Eq. (1),
 3=2
F ¼ K ðx cos yi þy sin yi ÞCr ð4Þ

Since the Hertzian forces arise only when there is contact

deformation, the springs are required to act only in compression.
In other words the respective spring force comes into play when
the instantaneous spring length is shorter than its unstressed
length (the term in the bracket should be positive); otherwise the
separation between ball and race takes place and the resulting
force is set to zero. The total restoring force is the sum of the
restoring forces from each of the rolling elements. Resolving the
total restoring force along the X- and Y-axis we obtain

X
Z  3=2
FX ¼ K ðx cos yi þ y sin yi ÞCr cos yi ð5Þ
i¼1

X
Z  3=2
FY ¼ K ðx cos yi þ ysin yi ÞCr sin yi ð6Þ
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of a ball bearing. i¼1

Fig. 5. Flow chart of the program.

Table 1
Inputs for the model.

1. Geometric properties of the bearing 6305

Inner race diameter (Di) 32.1 mm
Outer race diameter (D0) 54.67 mm
Pitch diameter (D) 43.385 mm
Ball diameter (d) 11.274 mm
Number of balls (Z) 7
Contact angle (a) 01 (assumed)
Radial clearance (Cr) 11.285 mm

2. Other inputs
Mass of rotor (M) 3 kg
Damping factor (c) 200 N s/m
Fig. 4. (a) Defect on outer race and (b) defect on inner race.
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1196 M.S. Patil et al. / International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 52 (2010) 1193–1201

Eqs. (5) and (6) are modified to consider the effect of the defect X
Z

on the bearing surface. The defect is modeled as a circumferential FXD ¼ K½ðx cos yi þ ysin yi ÞðCr þHD sinðp=jðyt yi ÞÞÞ3=2 sin yi
i¼1
half sinusoidal wave. Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows the defect on the
ð8Þ
outer raceway and inner raceway, respectively.
The total deflection of the paths of bearing is the sum of the
Defect size
characteristic of the defect and that of the static deflection j¼
Raceway radius
considered. Radial displacement is obtained by considering the
resulting distortion. The restoring force for the presence of defect If the defect is on the outer race
on the bearing race is given as yt ¼ oc t þ 2p=ZðZiÞ ð9Þ

X
Z where i¼Z to 1.
FXD ¼ K ½ðx cos yi þ ysin yi ÞðCr þ HD sinðp=jðyt yi ÞÞÞ3=2 cos yi The inner race is moving at the shaft speed (o) and the ball
i¼1 center at the speed of the cage (oc). If a point on the inner race
ð7Þ and a point at the ball center are considered at the same distance

Fig. 6. (a) Time domain and power spectrum of vibrations due to outer race defect and (b) power spectrum due to outer race defect.
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M.S. Patil et al. / International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 52 (2010) 1193–1201 1197

Fig. 6. (Continued)

from the X-axis at the initial time, it is seen that after a time t, the
point at the ball center will lag the point on the inner race by an
angle of  (o  oc)t. Eqs. (7) and (8) can be used to calculate the
restoring force due to defect on inner race by substituting‘yt’ by
Eq. (10).
For the defect on the inner race
yt ¼ ðoc oÞt þ2p=ZðZiÞ
2.2. Equation of motion
A computer program is developed to obtain the solution and
plot the results.
3. Flow chart of the program
The program consists of a function and the main program.
ð10Þ The function is used to compute the state derivatives. The
main program uses the function as the input and solves the
equations.
The flow chart of both the parts is shown in Fig. 5.

4. Results
The equations of motion for a two degree of freedom system
can be written as follows:
The non-linear equations are solved to obtain the radial
M x€ þcx_ þFXD ¼ W ð11Þ displacements. In order to obtain the results the inputs used are
shown in Table 1.
M y€ þ cy_ þFYD ¼ 0 ð12Þ
4.1. Initial conditions
Eqs. (11) and (12) are second order non-linear differential
equations. The solution to these equations is obtained by The time step for the investigation is assumed as the
converting these into first order differential equations using state time required for 0.11 of rotation. For the shaft speed
space variable method. of 1200 rpm, the time increment is 37.543 ms. The initial
displacements set to the following values: x0 ¼ 106 m and
Let z1 ¼ x, z2 ¼ x, _ z3 ¼ y, z4 ¼ y_
y0 ¼ 106 m. The initial velocities are assumed to be zero: x_ 0 ¼ 0
z_ 1 ¼ x_ ¼ z2 , z_ 2 ¼ x,
€ z_ 3 ¼ y_ ¼ z4 , z_ 4 ¼ y€ and y_ 0 ¼ 0.

Therefore,
For a shaft speed, Ns ¼1200 rpm.
8 9 Shaft speed, o ¼ 2pNs =60 ¼125.66 rad/s.
8 9 8_ 9 8 9 8_9
> z1 > >
> x> > z 1 > > z2 > > x> Shaft frequency, Fs ¼ Ns =60 ¼20 Hz.
>
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
< z2 >
= >
< x_ >
= = >
< z_ 2 > < z_ 2 >
= > < x€ >
= Cage speed, oc ¼ ðo=2Þð1ðd=DÞ cos aÞ¼ 46.5 rad/s.
z¼ ¼ and z_ ¼ ¼ ¼ ZNs
 
z3 > y> _ y_ Ball pass frequency outer (BPFO)¼ 260 1 Dd cos a ¼ 51.8 Hz.
>
>
> > >
> > > z3 >
>
>
> > > z4 > > > > > >
: > ; >
> >
: y_ >
; : > ; > : > ; > > >
: y€ >
; Ball pass frequency inner (BPFI) ¼ZNs =2  60ð1 þ d=D cos aÞ ¼
z4 z_ 4 z_ 4
88.19 Hz.
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4.2. Effect of defect size
The defect is modeled as half sine wave. The defect size
corresponds to the length of the defect in the direction of the
motion. The depth of the defect is taken as 0.1 mm. The results
are obtained for a radial load of 100 N and shaft speed of
1200 rpm. Fig. 6(a) and (b) shows the time domain and the
power spectrum of the vibrations due to outer race defect of
different sizes. Peaks at BPFO and its harmonics are seen in
the power spectrum. The dominant frequency is 103.6 Hz
(2BPFO). There is significant increase in the amplitude at this
frequency with the increase in the size.
4.3. Effect of position of the defect
The rolling elements present in the load zone [10] support the
external load. Fig. 7 shows the variation in the amplitude level of
vibration with respect to the position of the defect on the outer race
for the bearing. It is clear from the figure that maximum amplitude of

Fig. 7. Effect of defect location.

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vibration occurs when the defect is at zero degree. In this position the (shaft frequency) are found. The frequencies corresponding to the
defect is directly below the load (i.e., present in the load zone). As the peaks are 88.79 Hz (1BPFI), 308.9 Hz (1BPFI+ 11Fs), 353.3 Hz
defect moves away from the load zone, the amplitude decreases. (4BPFI) and 397.7 ( E2BPFI+11Fs).

4.4. Inner race defect

5. Experimentation
The results for the effect of inner race defect size are presented
in Fig. 8(a) and (b). BPFI for a shaft speed of 1200 rpm is 88.19 Hz. The experimental set-up used for this study is shown in Fig. 9.
Peaks at BPFI and the combination of the BPFI and inner ring It consists of a shaft supported on two bearings and driven by a

Fig. 8. (a) Results of defect on inner race and (b) results of defect on inner race.
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1200 M.S. Patil et al. / International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 52 (2010) 1193–1201
Fig. 9. Experimental set-up.
Fig. 10. Defect on the bearing race.
variable speed motor. The test bearing, a single-row deep groove
ball bearing (SKF 6305) is placed on the non-drive end of the shaft
and a double-row self aligning ball bearing is placed on the drive
end side. A hydraulic loading arrangement which is used to apply
load on the bearing is placed between these two bearings. A
piezo-electric accelerometer with a sensitivity of 50 mV/g is used
to measure the vibrations. It is mounted on the housing of the test
bearing. The accelerometer is connected to the charge amplifier,
the output of which is connected to a computer. The relevant
hardware and the software required to acquire the data, store it,
and display the time domain signal are installed in the computer
used for this work. The signals are sampled at 9 kHz with a
sampling size of 4096 (212) samples. Low pass filter of 1 kHz is
used to remove the unwanted high frequency noise. The
experiments have been performed on separate test bearings
having defects of size 0.5, 1 and 1.5 mm artificially induced on
outer race and inner race separately. Electric discharge machine
was used to create the defect on the bearing surface. Fig. 10 shows
the bearing outer race with 0.5 mm defect. The experiment was
performed at a shaft speed of 1200 rpm and radial load of 1000 N.
Fig. 11 depicts the results for the bearing with defect on its
outer race. The percentage variation between the theoretical and
experimental defect frequency is found to be 4.5–5.6%. This error
may be attributed to the slip existing between the rolling element
and the bearing races. There is difference between the amplitudes
of vibration predicted by the model and the experiment because it
is difficult to take into account the effects of the total rotor
bearing system in the theoretical model.
6. Conclusion
1. A mathematical model for the ball bearing vibrations due to
defect on the bearing race has been developed. This model, in
which the defect itself is modeled as half sinusoidal, helps
to simulate the effect of the defect size and its position and
predict the spectral components due to this. The model
predicts the frequency spectrum having peaks at characteristic
defect frequencies and the amplitudes at these frequencies
emanating from the bearings. The frequency spectrum of the
bearing vibrations due to the defects comprises mainly BPFO
and its harmonics for outer race defect and, BPFI and the
combination of BPFI and the shaft frequency for the inner race
defect. The frequency components obtained from the proposed
model are similar to those appearing in the frequency spectra
of the experimental data for various defect conditions. This
verifies the validity of the proposed model.
2. It is found that the amplitude level of vibrations for the case
of outer race defect is more than that for the inner race defect
and the ball defect. The defect present on the inner race moves
in and out of the load zone during each revolution of the
shaft. In this instance, the strong fault signatures produced
while the defect is in the load zone are averaged with the
weaker signatures acquired while the defect is outside the
load zone. This has the effect of attenuating the magnitude of
the inner-race characteristic fault frequency. It is predicted
from the model that the amplitude of vibration increases with
the increase in the defect size. The same is observed
experimentally.
3. The prediction of the actual amplitudes of vibration is not
possible by the model because it is difficult to incorporate into
the model, the effect of the rotor bearing system, which
includes the shaft, motor, bearing and the supporting frame.
However, it helps to predict the effect of the defect size and its
position and the spectral components due to this.
4. The present model is somewhat limited in treating the ball
skidding effect. Ball slip is a function of lubrication, ball cage
clearance, angular alignment, as well as speed and load.
Lubrication traction has dominant effect on the ball skidding.
Slip arises when the moment due to the drag forces on the ball,
which is created by the viscous shearing resistance of the
grease, exceeds the traction moment at the raceway contacts.
The present effort was aimed at a simpler approach to obtain a
theoretical model to study the effect of defect size, load and
speed on the bearing vibration and predict the spectral
components. Including the ball raceway interaction and ball
skidding phenomenon would make the model more rigorous.
The authors believe that the moment load effects are not large
enough and therefore, may not lead to large error in the
results. However, this model will be upgraded at a future time
to incorporate the effect of ball skidding to predict the spectral
components of bearing with defects.
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M.S. Patil et al. / International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 52 (2010) 1193–1201
Fig. 11. Power spectrum for outer race defect (experimental).
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support
by KSCST (Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology)
Bangalore, for fabricating the experimental set-up and SKF India,
Pune for providing the bearings required for the tests.
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