Damage Factor Calculation for Condition Monitoring of Rolling Bearings

New demands placed on industry make it necessary to improve design, real-time monitoring and failure prediction methods for rolling bearings. This paper presents an approach for assessing how contact surface damage affects the vibration response of rolling bearings and how vibration-based monitoring shows the damage level of rolling element bearings. A new parameter named the damage factor is introduced to quantify the vibration response of rolling bearings. The analytical–numerical method for calculation of this parameter is developed based on nonlinear dynamics postulates. The developed method for damage factor calculation is tested on a particular type of radial deep groove ball bearing, and an experimental verification is performed, showing a maximum deviation of 7% in the results. The conclusions drawn from the obtained results and the potential contributions of the introduced parameters for rolling bearing design are discussed. The chosen polynomial function keeps deviations in relation to the calculated damage factor within 3% for failed areas of different sizes.