Multitude of Objectives Based Optimum Designs of Cylindrical Roller Bearings With Evolutionary Methods

Abstract

In the design of cylindrical roller bearings (CRBs), a long life is one of the most essential criteria. However, the life of bearings depends on the multitude of factors that includes the fatigue, lubrication, and thermal characteristics in bearings. In the present work, three primary objectives namely, the dynamic capacity, the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) minimum film-thickness, and the maximum temperature have been optimized, sequentially. Some of these objectives may be contradicting to each other. The optimum bearing design has been attempted by first deriving a constrained nonlinear formulation and then optimizing it with an evolutionary algorithm. Constraint violations study has been performed to have assessment of the effectiveness of each of the constraints. A convergence study has been carried out to ensure the near global optimum point in the design. In terms of the basic dynamic capacity of the bearing, there is an excellent conformity among the optimized and customary bearings. A sensitivity study of various geometric design variables has been performed to see changes in objective functions and results show that geometric variables have hardly any undesirable influence.