Experimental study on impact of roller imbalance on cage stability

This study presents a method for measuring the imbalance in a small-sized cylindrical roller. The roller imbalance was calibrated on the built static-pressure-air flotation measurement machine. The impact of the roller imbalance on the dynamic characteristics of a cage were then studied on the aero-bearing test rig. The displacement spectrums with different roller imbalance of the obtained cage orbits under various bearing speed and radial load were used to evaluate the cage stability. The results show that the cage cannot form a stable operating state at a lower bearing speed with or without the unbalanced rollers. The cage with balanced rollers gradually develops stable motion with the increase of the bearing speed. The existence of a small roller imbalance causes the stability of the cage to deteriorate. With an increase in the bearing speed and radial load, the cage with the unbalanced rollers runs unsteadily accompanied by a high-frequency vibration when the roller imbalance is large enough. The vibration amplitude of the cage in the horizontal direction is greater than that in the vertical direction during an unstable operation, which is similar in the stable status.