Original Article

Proc IMechE Part C:

J Mechanical Engineering Science
Optimization of structure parameters 0(0) 1–11
! IMechE 2016

for angular contact ball bearings based Reprints and permissions:

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on Kriging model and particle swarm DOI: 10.1177/0954406216665417

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optimization algorithm

Feng Jilu1,2, Sun Zhili2 and Sun Hongzhe2

Abstract
To achieve the heat generation of an angular contact ball bearing, especially when confronted with a difficult challenge, is a
complexity of numerical and analytical models of bearings. A combination method of the Kriging model and particle
swarm optimization algorithm is proposed for optimizing structure parameters of the bearing to obtain the minimum
heat generation of the bearing. Therefore, the heat generation and stiffness of the angular contact ball bearing, which are
acquired based on pseudo statics analysis and raceway control theory of the bearing, are the optimization goal and
constraint condition, respectively, that are used in particle swarm optimization. Taking the angular contact ball bearing
NSK-7016A5 as an example, the results show that the total heat generation of the bearing is decreased and that the axial
stiffness of the bearing is increased by optimizing the structure parameters of the bearing. In the end, the combination
method that uses both Kriging and particle swarm optimization to optimize the structure parameters of the bearing
could obtain satisfactory design results and increased bearing design efficiency; it also bears the potential for the design
parameter optimization of other mechanical structures, which may lead to better design results.

Keywords
Angular contact ball bearing, heat generation, stiffness, Kriging model, particle swarm optimization

Date received: 19 March 2016; accepted: 29 July 2016

Introduction
With the development of the mechanical industry, an
increasing number of rotary machines are developed
for high speed, high precision, and heavy load condi-
tions. Bearings are well known to have an important
role in mechanical transmission systems, and the bear-
ing’s performance should be improved to ensure the
safety and reliability of mechanical equipment, espe-
cially under extreme operating conditions. As the
primary heat-generating component in mechanical
transmission systems, excessive heat generation
in the bearing has a severe effect on the accuracy of
mechanical equipment. Moreover, the stiffness of
bearings has a significant influence on the load cap-
acity of the mechanical equipment and the dynamics
of a rotating shaft. Therefore, the heat generation and
stiffness of bearings are critical for determining the
performance of rotating machinery.
Angular contact ball bearings, which are the most
importance parts of spindle-bearing systems, have
been tested extensively. It is known that the dynamic
stability of spindle systems can be improved by using
the proper stiffness of bearings. Over the past several
decades, researchers have developed many numerical
and analytical models for determining bearing stiff-
ness.1–3 Furthermore, more attention has been paid
to the influence of varying speed and the combination
of radial, axial and moment loads on the stiffness of
angular contact ball bearings.4–6 The heat generation
of bearings, which is one of the main heat sources, can
cause the deformation of the spindle, but most papers
have studied the thermo-mechanical model based on
the finite element method.7–10 None of the research
mentioned above considered the significance of bear-
ing structure parameters in determining the stiffness
and heat generation of bearings. However, bearing
structure parameters such as pitch diameter, contact
1
Institute of Oceanographic Instrumentation, Shandong Academy of
Sciences, Qingdao, China
2
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern
University, Shenyang, China
Corresponding author:
Feng Jilu, Institute of Oceanographic Instrumentation, Shandong
Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266001, China.
Email: fengjilu123@sina.com

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2 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)

angle, number of balls, ball diameter and groove section presents a virtual prototype model of angular
curvature play a crucial role in determining the stiff- contact ball bearing and introduces the optimized
ness and heat generation of ball bearings with angular objective function and optimization procedure. The
contact. Therefore, to obtain reasonable structure optimization results of angular contact ball bearing
parameters for bearings, an effective method should structure parameters and the efficiency of the pro-
be presented. posed method are presented in the Results section.
Confronted with the complexity of numerical and The paper ends with the Conclusions section.
analytical models of bearings, we seek a model to
replace the numerical and analytical models of bear-
ings as the performance function. In the last century, Stiffness and heat generation model
scientists proposed the response surface method and of the bearing
the neural network to forecast estimates to meet the
Bearing model
needs of engineering calculations.11,12 In particular,
the response surface method is widely used in various The geometry and angular position of an angular con-
fields of engineering design.13,14 However, the tact ball bearing are shown in Figure 1. In the instance
response surface method shows the relative accuracy of zero load, the distance between the centres of the
of polynomial approximations, which is worse than groove curvature radii can be expressed as
the Kriging method.
The Kriging algorithm was used in predictive simu- A ¼ Ri þ Ro  Dw ¼ ð fi þ fo  1ÞDw ð1Þ
lations of geological geomorphology by DG Krige in
the 1950s and was then further developed by where Dw is the diameter of the ball and f is defined
Matheron.15 Later, Kriging models were widely by f¼R/Dw. The free contact angle a0 can be deter-
applied to the input/output data of deterministic mined by the bearing diametral clearance and can be
simulation models.16,17 The predictions of the defined by
response can be achieved for any unknown point
when stochastic parameters of the Kriging model Di þ 2Dw  DO
cos 0 ¼ 1 þ ð2Þ
are defined by a design of experiments. 2A
Furthermore, by taking a small amount of sample
points, the Kriging method can effectively handle where Di and D0 are the diameter of the inner- and
problems that include high nonlinearity and the muta- outer-ring raceway grooves, respectively.
tion of partial response.
As a novel computational method, particle swarm Distribution of internal loading. In Figure 1, the assump-
optimization (PSO) has attracted considerable atten- tion is that the outer ring of the bearing is fixed in
tion and wide applications in different fields. Najjari space. Compared with the fixed centre, the inner race-
proposed using PSO for optimum design of cylin- way groove curvature centre can be relatively moved.
drical roller profile.18 Savsani used PSO and simulated The azimuth position of the jth rolling element, ’j, is
annealing algorithms to optimize the weight of a gear given by
train.19 Kucuk performed a study about energy mini-
mization for 3-RRR fully planar parallel manipulator ’j ¼ 2ð j  1Þ=Z ð3Þ
using PSO. All above researches18–20 used the PSO
algorithm to obtain the better design results. where Z is the number of balls.
However, there is almost no research on PSO with
regard to the optimization of structure parameters
in angular contact ball bearings. Moreover, the stiff-
ness and heat generation of bearings are crucial to
determine the bearing performance, and the structure
parameters of bearings have a great influence on its
performance. Therefore, to achieve optimal angular
contact ball bearing performance, an improved PSO
algorithm was applied to achieve an optimized design
of the structure parameters of the angular contact ball
bearing based on the Kriging model.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The
Stiffness and heat generation model of the bearing
section introduces the stiffness and heat generation
model of angular contact ball bearings. The Kriging
model and PSO algorithm section recalls the basic
theory of the Kriging model and the PSO algorithm. Figure 1. Geometry and angular position of an angular
The Global optimization based on Kriging model contact ball bearing.

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Jilu et al. 3

As shown in Figure 2(a), points Oo0 , Ob and Oi0 where the angular velocity of the ball (wb) and the
represent the position of the outer raceway groove cage (wc) are shown in Jiang and Mao21 in detail.
curvature centre, the ball centre and the inner raceway The balance equations of the inner ring of the bear-
groove curvature centre, respectively, when consider- ing can be established as
ing the centrifugal force of the ball. Using the
Pythagorean theorem, the equation of kinematic con- X
Z

straints between the raceway and the ball can be Fr  Qij cos ij cos ’j ¼ 0
j¼1
expressed as
X
Z
 2 Fa  Qij sin ij ¼ 0 ð8Þ
X1j þ X2j  ð fo  0:5ÞDw þ oj ¼ 0 j¼1
 2
ðA1j  X1j Þ2 þðA2j  X2j Þ2  ð fi  0:5ÞDw þ ij ¼ 0 X
Z
M Qij Ri sin ij cos ’i ¼ 0
ð4Þ j¼1

where Ri ¼ 12 Dm þ ð fo  0:5ÞDw cos o and 0 is the

From Figure 2(b), the ball equilibrium equations initial contact angle of rolling elements.
can be described as
Stiffness in bearing. The stiffness of the bearing is the
Qij sin ij  Qoj sin oj load–deflection factor and depends largely on the
Mgj   geometry of the contact and material properties.
 lij cos ij  loj cos oj ¼ 0 According to the Hertz contact theory in elastic-
Dw
ð5Þ mechanics, the Hertz contact forces between the
Qij cos ij  Qoj cos oj
outer ring and the balls and between the inner ring
Mgj  and the balls can be represented by the following
þ ðlij sin ij  loj sin oj þ Fcj ¼ 0
Dw equation

where l is the ball control parameter. According to the  P 13

9  2
control theory of outer ring, the friction force between ¼ P Q3 ð9Þ
22 k2 E2
the ball-outer and ball-inner raceway contacts is com-
pletely equal; then, loj ¼ lij ¼ 1. When the ball gyro- Differentiating equation (9) with respect to contact
scopic moment is completely neutralized by friction force Q, the following equation can be obtained
force at the ball-outer raceway contacts, then loj ¼ 2
and lij ¼ 0. In this paper, loj ¼ 2 and lij ¼ 0.  2  1
kE 3 2 3 1
The centrifugal force and gyroscopic moment of a K ¼ 1:5 P Q3 ð10Þ
ball are as follows 3  

121
Fcj ¼ 0:5mb Dm w2c ð6Þ where E is the equivalent elastic modulus, 2
E ¼ E1
122
Mgj ¼ Ib wb wc sin  ð7Þ
þ E2 .

(a) (b)

Figure 2. (a) Displacement relations between curvature centres. (b) Ball loading at angular location ’j.

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4 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)

Brewe and Harmrock,22 who used linear regression Frictional torque due to applied load. According to
with the method of least squares, presented the fol- Palmgren,23 the frictional torque caused by the
lowing equations applied load, Ml, can be calculated as
P 0:636 Ml ¼ f1 F Dm ð15Þ
Ry
k ¼ 1:0339 P
Rx
P  where dm is the bearing pitch diameter and F is the
Ry
 ¼ 1:5277 þ 0:3023ln P ð11Þ dynamical equivalent load and can be obtained as
Rx below
P
Rx
 ¼ 1:0003 þ 0:5968 P :
Ry F ¼ maxð0:9Fa cot   0:1Fr , Fr Þ ð16Þ

The load–deflection constants between the ball and where Fa and Fr are the axial and radial loads of the
outer and inner rings of bearings, Koj and Kij, are bearing.
given as f1 is a factor that depends on the bearing design
and relative load. For ball bearings with contact
 2  1 angles between 20 and 40 , we have
koj E 3 2oj 3 13
Koj ¼ 1:5 P Qo
3oj oj   0:33
 2  1 ð12Þ Fs
kij E 3 2ij 3 13 f1 ¼ 0:001 ð17Þ
Kij ¼ 1:5 P Qi : Cs
3ij ij 
where Fs is the equivalent static load and Cs is the
According to the geometrical relationship of the basic static load rating, which are supplied by the
bearings, the axial and radial contact stiffnesses of manufacturer.
the jth rolling element between the inner and outer
raceway are as follows Torque due to viscous friction. The friction torque Mv due
to lubricant viscous friction can be empirically calcu-
Kaij ¼ Kij sin2 ij lated as follows

Kaoj ¼ Koj sin2 oj Mv ¼ 107 f0 ðv0 nÞ2=3 D3m v0 n52000

ð13Þ ð18Þ
Krij ¼ Kij cos2 ij Mv ¼ 160  107 f0 D3m v0 n 5 2000
Kroj ¼ Koj cos2 oj :
where f0 is a factor that depends on the lubrication
Using the serial–parallel relationship between the type and bearing type, v0 is the kinematic viscosity of
ball-inner raceway and the ball-outer raceway, the the lubricating oil given in centistokes, and n is the
axial, radial and angular stiffness can be obtained as speed of the bearing. Due to kinematic viscosity
follows depending on temperature, the variations in tempera-
ture should be considered. Therefore, the kinematic
XZ
Kaij Kaoj viscosity of the lubrication should be obtained under
Ka ¼ the mean bearing temperature.
K
j¼1 aij
þ Kaoj
XZ
Krij Kroj 2 Torque due to sliding motion. The second component of
Kr ¼ cos2 ð j  1Þ ð14Þ heat generation in the bearing is the spinning friction
K þ Kroj
j¼1 rij
Z
moment, which is given by
D2m X
Z
Krij Kroj 2
K ¼ cos2 ð j  1Þ: 3si Qi ai i
4 j¼1 Krij þ Kroj Z Msi ¼
8 ð19Þ
3so Qo ao o
Mso ¼
8
Heat generation model where Q is the contact force in equation (5),  is the
The majority of the heat generation that occurs within friction factor between the ball and the raceway of the
the bearing is due to friction between the ball and the bearing with value from 0.01 to 0.06, a is the semi-
raceway of the bearing. The total frictional torque of major axis of the contact area, and is the complete
the bearing consists of three torques: the torque due elliptical integral of the second kind.
to the applied load, the torque due to the viscous fric- According to Harris and Kotzalas,24 the load- and
tion and the torque due to the spinning motion at the viscosity-related heat generations can be divided
contact area. equally into two parts, which are the heat generated

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Jilu et al. 5

on the inner raceway and the outer raceway and can where sz is the process variance, xi denotes the known
be expressed as follows sample points, and R(xi, xj) is the correlation function
" about sample points xi and xj with a correlation par-
1 Dw ameter vector h. There are several models to define the
Mij ¼ 5  108 f0 ð 0 !Þ2=3 D3m correlation function; the Guassian correlative model
Z Doo
# has the best performance and widest usage and is
 1=3
1 Fsi expressed as
þ f1 Fi Dm
2 Cs !
" ð20Þ X
ns  
 
1 Dw Rðxi , xj Þ ¼ exp  k xki  xkj  ð28Þ
Moj ¼ 5  108 f0 ð 0 !Þ2=3 D3m k¼1
Z Doi
 1=3 #
1 Fso where ns is the sample number, and xik, xjk and k are
þ f1 Fo Dm
2 Cs the kth components of xi, xj, and , respectively. To
obtain a smoother metamodel,  usually takes the
where Doi and Doo are the diameter between the value of 2.  is generally replaced by a scalar .
inner–outer raceway and the contact point of the roll- Therefore, equation (28) can be denoted as
ing element. !
Finally, the heat generation between the inner X
ns  2
 
and outer raceway contacts can be described as Rðxi , xj Þ ¼ exp  xik  xjk  ð29Þ
follows k¼1

X
z X
z
 and  are then estimated as
Hi ¼ !roll  Mij þ !sij  Msij
j¼1 j¼1
ð21Þ ^ ¼ ðFT R1 FÞ1 FT R1 g ð30Þ
X
z X
z
Ho ¼ !roll  Moj þ !soj  Msoj
1
j¼1 j¼1
^ z2 ¼ ðg  FÞT R1 ðg  FÞ ð31Þ
N0
Dm
!roll ¼ !c  ð22Þ where F is the vector of the estimated value of the
Dw
sample points f(x) and R is the correlation matrix
H ¼ Hi þ Ho ð23Þ that consists of the estimated values of R(xi,xj) of
known sample points. The formula is shown below
where H is the total heat generated in the contact zone 2 3
for raceways. Rðx1 , x1 Þ  Rðx1 , xn Þ
6 .. .. .. 7
R ¼6
4 . . .
7:
5 ð32Þ
Kriging model and PSO algorithm Rðxn , x1 Þ  Rðxn , xn Þ
Kriging model
The correlation parameter  can be obtained by the
As a half interpolation method (just as Kaymaz25), maximum likelihood estimation
the Kriging method consists of a parametric linear
regression model and a non-parametric random pro-  ¼ arg min½N0 ln
z2 þ lnjRj: ð33Þ

cess as follows

gðxÞ ¼ f T ðxÞb þ zðxÞ
where g(x) is the unknown function of interest and
f T(x) is the function of x, which comprises a global
simulation in the design space. B is the regression
coefficient vector. Z(x) is the random process, whose
statistic characteristics can be shown as
ð24Þ According to the obtained parameters, the most
unbiased prediction of the real response value is
^
gðxÞ ¼ fT ðxÞb þ rT ðxÞ^
 ð34Þ
where r(x) is the correlation matrix between the inter-
est point x and the known sample points as follows

E½zðxÞ ¼ 0 ð25Þ rðxÞ ¼ ½Rðx, x1 Þ, Rðx, x2 Þ,   , Rðx, xns ÞT ð35Þ

Var½zðxÞ ¼
z2 ð26Þ and vector a^ is

covðzðxi Þ, zðxj ÞÞ ¼
z2 Rðxi , xj Þ ð27Þ ^
a^ ¼ R1 ð g  FÞ: ð36Þ

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6 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)
Finally,  is obtained by the maximized problem
such that
 
1 1
max  lnðr^ 2 Þ  lnjRj :
k 40 2 2
PSO algorithm
Using PSO as a population-based stochastic search
and optimization process was first introduced by
Kennedy and Eberhart26 in 1995. In a PSO process,
a swarm of particles flies through an N-dimensional
search space, in which the position of each particle
represents a potential solution to the optimization
problem. The particles are randomly distributed in
the search space, and the goal is to converge to the
global best of a function. The position and velocity of
the kth updated of a random particle d are xdk and vdk,
respectively. The value of the fitness function is then
calculated for each particle, and the position and vel-
ocity of the kþ1st update of particle d can be
described as follows
vkþ1
d ¼ wvkd þ c1 r1 ð pkd  xkd Þ þ c2 r2 ð pkg  xkd Þ
xkþ1 ¼ xkd þ vkþ1
d d
where w is the inertia weight, r1U(0,1) and
r2 U(0,1) are random variables with a uniform distri-
bution, and c1 and c2 are the acceleration constants. pdk
and pgk are the personal best position (the so-called
pbest) and the group best position (the so-called
gbest), respectively. The first term of the right side
of equation (38) is the memory term, which represents
the contribution of previous velocity; the second
term is the cognitive component, which represents the
particle’s own experience; and the third term is the
social component, which represents the tendency of
the particle toward the global best solution achieved
so far.
According to the changes of the fitness, the linearly
decreasing weight to update the inertia weight was
proposed by Shi and Eberhart,27 and its expression
is as follows
wmax  wmin
w ¼ wmax  k
kmin
where wmax and wmin are the maximum and minimum
values of the inertia weight, respectively, and kmax is
the maximum number of iterations.
To avoid a swarm of particles trapped in local
optima, the solution procedure of adaptive mutation
is used to adjust the particle’s position. Its general
form is
xði, j Þ ¼ xmax  rand
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where i¼m*rand0 and m is the population number.
Global optimization based on
ð37Þ Kriging model
As shown in Figure 3, angular contact ball bearing
NSK-7016A5 is taken as an example in this paper.
The initial design parameters of angular contact ball
bearing are listed in Table 1. The Kriging model is
constructed to describe the functional relationship
between the structure parameters of the bearing and
the heat generated in the bearing as well as that
between structure parameters of the bearing and the
axial stiffness of the bearing. An improved PSO-based
Kriging model is applied to achieve the global opti-
mization of the structure parameters of the bearing,
which can contribute to decreasing the heat generated
in the bearing.
Establishing the optimized mathematical model
Design variable. Because the heat generation and the
stiffness are very significant characteristics of bear-
ings, as noted briefly above, structure parameters
ð38Þ such as pitch diameter, contact angle, number of
balls, ball diameter and groove curvatures have a cru-
ð39Þ cial effect on the heat generation and stiffness of bear-
ings. However, the number of balls Z is an integer,
and its influence on the heat generation and stiffness
of bearings is not considered in this paper. To
improve the performance of the bearing, the design
variables used to calculate the heat generation and
stiffness of bearings are as follows
x ¼½Dw , Dm , Ri , Ro , 0 : ð42Þ
The initial contact angular depending on pitch
diameter, ball diameter and groove curvature radii
of the bearing can be determined from equation (2).
In this paper, the inner raceway diameter is a constant
for decreasing computational complexity, and the
pitch diameter depends only on the outer raceway
diameter. The number range of design variables of
the bearing are listed in Table 2.
Objective function. The performance of the bearing-
rotor system is crucially influenced by the thermal
ð40Þ
behaviour of the bearings. Thus, to reduce the thermal
effects of the bearing, the minimum heat generation is
taken as the objective function, and it can be obtained
as follows
Hmin ¼ f ðxÞ ¼ f ðRi , Ro , Do , Dw , 0 Þ: ð43Þ
.
Constraint conditions
1. Constraint condition of design variables. To
ð41Þ research the influence of design variables on the
minimum heat generation of the bearing, the range
Jilu et al. 7

Figure 3. Flowchart of the optimization of structure parameters in bearings.

Table 1. The initial parameters of angular contact ball bearing. Table 3. Initial parameters of PSO.

Parameters of ball bearings NSK-7016A5 Parameter Value

Bearing bore diameter d (mm) 80 Iterations, niter 200

Bearing outside diameter D (mm) 125 Population number, m 30,50,70,100
Ball diameter Dw (mm) 13.494 Inertia weight coefficient, w 0.8–1.2 random number
Bearing pitch diameter Dm (mm) 103.1417 Acceleration constant, c 1.6
Outer diameter of the inner ring Di (mm) 88.9397
Inner diameter of the outer ring Do (mm) 116.035
varies with the structure parameters of the bear-
Curvature radius of the inner groove Ri (mm) 7.101
ings. Higher stiffness can lead to a better load cap-
Curvature radius of the outer groove Ro (mm) 6.966 acity of the bearing. In general, the angular
The number of the ball 20 contact ball bearing NSK-7016A5 is used in a cer-
tain model of spindle system for the CNC machine
tool, and the radial stiffness of spindle system is
big enough. The axial stiffness of angular contact
Table 2. The number range of design variables of the bearing. ball bearings is far less than the radial stiffness.
To increase the axial stiffness of the bearing, the
Design variables Mean () Variance (s) constraint of the bearing stiffness is as follows
Ri (mm) 7.101 0.005
Ro (mm) 6.966 0.005 K0a 4 Ka ð45Þ
Do (mm) 116.035 0.01
where K0a and Ka are the axial stiffness before and
Dw (mm) 13.494 0.005
after optimization, respectively.

of design variables based on the 3-sigma rule is as

follows
Optimization procedure
The design optimization of structure parameters of
7:0864Ri 47:116 angular contact ball bearings is divided into two
6:9514Ro 46:981 parts: the mechanical model of the bearings and the
PSO based on the Kriging model. The flowchart is
13:4794Dw 413:509 ð44Þ
shown in Figure 3. According to Table 2, the design
116:0054Do 4116:065 variables are picked up through Latin hypercube sam-
23 40 429 pling. The stiffness and heat generation of bearings
can then be calculated by the kinematic and dynamic
2. Constraint of the bearing stiffness. In the case of parameters in equations (4) to (8). Due to the mutual
constant speed and preload, the bearing stiffness constraint of variables in equations (4) to (8), the

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8 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 0(0)

iterative process is extremely complex. Moreover, it is the MATLAB software to obtain the corresponding
indispensable for calculating the Jacobi matrix when 30 groups of heat generated in the bearing and the
the Newton–Raphson algorithm is applied to solve axial stiffness of the bearing. The objective function
the above nonlinear equations. To prevent the non- is fitted using the Kriging model, and the fitting error
convergence problem in the calculation process, a of the sampling points is shown in Figure 4. The
relaxation factor should be presented. Then, the kine- results show that there is almost no difference between
matic and dynamic parameters can be obtained to
meet the requirements of calculating the heat gener-
ation and stiffness of bearings. The objective function
based on the Kriging model can be obtained accord-
ing to the calculation results of heat generation.
Further, the axial stiffness as constraint is acquired
by the Kriging model, and an improved PSO is
applied to identify the optimal point. Finally, if the
point can meet the constraint conditions, and the min-
imum heat generation of the bearings can be acquired,
the result is treated as the optimal structure param-
eters of the bearings.

Results
The structure parameters of angular contact ball bear-
ing NSK-7016A5 are optimized using the PSO algo-
rithm combined with the Kriging method in this Figure 5. Iterations relation with fitness.
paper. The friction heat between rolling elements
and the cage of the bearing is not considered. Under
the conditions of the radial load Fr ¼ 200 N, the axial
Table 4. Optimization results of structure parameters of the
preload Fa ¼ 3000 N and the bearing speed n ¼ 10000
bearing.
r/min, both the heat generation and stiffness are cal-
culated based on pseudo static analysis and raceway The number
control theory of the bearing. The bearing material is of particles Ri Ro Do Dw
GCr15, and the initial parameters of the PSO algo- N ¼ 30 7.108 6.951 116.043 13.479
rithm are presented in Table 3.
N ¼ 50 7.108 6.951 116.043 13.479
Based on the range of design variables, the Latin
N ¼ 70 7.108 6.951 116.043 13.479
hypercube sampling method is applied to pick up 30
groups of sampling points, which are calculated using N ¼ 100 7.108 6.951 116.043 13.479

Figure 4. Fitting error of Kriging model.

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Jilu et al. 9

the real variable and the objective function. Thus, the As known from the analysis, the aim of reducing the
function established using the Kriging model can be heat generation of the bearing is achieved. The opti-
the objective function, which is the fitness function in mization result further illustrates the validity of the
the PSO algorithm. method using an improved PSO algorithm combined
The PSO algorithm tends to be trapped in local
optima. To explain the validity of the global optimal
result, different population numbers are used in the
PSO. Iterations’ relation with fitness is shown in
Figure 5, which shows that the iterative convergence
speed of the PSO increases with the increasing of
population number. Additionally, the fitness retained
two significant figures after the decimal point is
423.97, meanwhile optimization results of structure
parameters of the bearing retained three significant
figures after the decimal point does not change with
a changing population number. Therefore, the opti-
mal point is obtained as shown in Table 4. The results
show that the number of particles equal to 30 can
meet the accuracy requirements of optimization
results.
To further explain the validity of method, Figures 6 Figure 7. Bearing stiffness compared before and after
and 7 show the heat generation and stiffness of the optimization.
bearing both before and after optimization. As seen in
Figure 6, by optimization, heat generated due to spin-
ning motion and total heat generation of the bearing
are markedly reduced; meanwhile, as a result of the
increasing of the bearing pitch diameter, there is a
small rise in the heat generated due to the applied
load and viscous friction. Figure 7 shows that the
radial stiffness of the bearing has a decrease, but the
axial stiffness of the bearing, as the constraint condi-
tion, is increased by optimization. Compared with the
original design variables of the bearing, the heat gen-
eration and the axial load capacity of the bearing are
significantly improved.
Figures 8 and 9 illustrate that the minimum heat
generation occurs at the 11th rolling element of the
bearing because the load acting on the 11th rolling
element is less than that acting on the other positions.
Moreover, the heat generated in the inner ring of the Figure 8. Heat generated in rolling elements compared
bearing is far greater than that in the outer ring. before and after optimization.

Figure 6. Heat generation of the bearing compared before Figure 9. Heat generation of outer and inner rings of the
and after optimization. bearing after optimization.

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10
with the Kriging model to optimize the structure par-
ameters of angular contact ball bearings.
Conclusions
Heat generation has a significant effect on the life of
angular contact ball bearings. To realize the minimum
heat generation of a bearing, a very large number of
design points should be identified and validated itera-
tively in the design process, which will lead to a mag-
nification of the calculation load and the extension of
the design cycle. Therefore, the optimization of struc-
ture parameters of the bearing through reasonable
design methods is highly valuable for academic
study and application.
The combination method of the Kriging model and
PSO is applied to optimize the structure parameters of
angular contact ball bearings. The number of design
points can significantly decrease when using the above
method, and the design efficiency of the bearing
can be enhanced. The angular contact ball bearing
NSK-7016A5 as an example has verified the correct-
ness of the design method in this work. The reduced
heat generation of the bearing further illustrates
the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed
method.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial
support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article: This study was funded by the National
Science and Technology Major Project of China (grant
no. 2013ZX04011-011).
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Rx effective radius of curvature in the
principal x-plane (mm)
Appendix Ry effective radius of curvature in the
principal y-plane (mm)
Notation
Z number of the ball
a semi-major axis of the contact area X1 horizontal distance between ball centres
(mm) and centres of curvature inner-ring
A1 horizontal distance between centres of raceway grooves (mm)
curvature of inner and outer race X2 vertical distance between ball centres
grooves (mm) and centres of curvature of inner-ring
A2 vertical distance between centres of raceway grooves (mm)
curvature of inner and outer race
 ball attitude angle ( )
grooves (mm)
 complete elliptical integral of the first
Cs basic static load rating
kind
Dw ball diameter (mm)
 friction coefficient
Dm bearing pitch diameter (mm)
1 Poisson’s ratio for contact body 1
Do outer raceway diameter (mm)
2 Poisson’s ratio for contact body 2
Di inner raceway diameter (mm)
0 kinematic viscosity of lubricate (Cst)
E1 modulus of elasticity for contact body 1
 complete elliptical integral of the
(N/mm2)
second kind
E2 modulus of elasticity for contact body 2
’ Azimuth position of rolling element
(N/mm2)
!b angular velocity of the ball (rad/s)
f1 factor depending on bearing design and
!c angular velocity of the cage (rad/s)
relative load
!s spin velocity (rad/s)
Fa axial load (N)
Fc centrifugal force (N)
Fr radial load (N)
Subscripts
Fs static equivalent load
Fb calculating load depending on the I inner raceway
magnitude and direction of the applied o outer raceway
load (N) j j¼1,2,3. . . . . .Z
Ib moment of inertia of the ball (kg.mm2)

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