Grazing contact researches for a spindle-ball bearing system

Abstract

This article combines the three-order harmonic balance method and eight-order Taylor expansion technique to give the qualitative analysis of responses for the spindle-ball bearing system. The effects of the bearing clearance and initial position of rotor on the frequency–response curves are investigated. As the number of contact balls alters due to the combining actions of the bearing clearance and initial position of rotor, the grazing phenomenon occurs and the frequency–response curve undergoes a major change. The system’s characteristic coefficients are also found to sharply grow at the point the number of contact balls alters. They therefore can be treated as the signs to indicate the occurrence of the grazing phenomenon, which is helpful for the researchers to study the non-linear and non-smooth properties of the spindle-ball bearing system.