Finite Element Analysis on the Fatigue Stresses of a Railway Vehicle Roller Bearing

The distributed fatigue stresses of 353130B roller bearing of China freight car with K5 type titling bogie are investigated using an elastic-plastic finite element (FE) analysis. Policy of two steps is applied. First, an integral FE analysis is performed on adapter-bearing-axle-wheel-track interactive system. Second, local analysis is applied to the local axle-bearing-adapter part, in which on the section of axle is with the bound condition obtained from the integral analysis. Wheel contact force spectrum on a curved railway line by on-line inspection is used for the present study. Previous proposed multivariate quadratic regression approach is applied for transferring the load spectrum to the dynamic stress spectrum at a special position of the bearing. Results reveal that the rollers, innerand outer-rings of bearing are subjected to distribute axially equivalent stress amplitude. The closer to axle side, the larger the equivalent stress amplitude. The equivalent stress amplitude of outer ring at the position close to the seal seat is relative larger to that of inner ring. The results are consistency with the shell failures of the bearings in production. Availability of present study is indicated.