Effects of the Design Parameters on Wear and Fatigue of Engine Bearings by EHL analysis

Modern engine bearings have been operating under very harsh conditions. Consequently, a bearing wear propagates for a short time and a fatigue sometimes occurs on high loaded region. To reproduce the bearing damage in actual engines, the operating conditions of engine bearing were simulated on a rig test machine. The bearing wear was measured until the fatigue crack occurred in the simulation test. The wear progressed at the edges of the bearing length and the crack also was observed near the edges. The bearing damage is influenced by the bearing design and operating conditions. The experiment was conducted to change the design parameters in conditions. The experimental results were compared to the calculated results based on the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) theory. The correlation between bearing damage and bearing performance by theoretical analysis were investigated on effects of the design parameters.