A Study for Wear and Fatigue of Engine Bearings on Rig Test by Using Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication Analysis

Engine bearings today are operating under very harsh conditions. Consequently, a wear propagates for a short time and a fatigue sometimes occurs on the bearings. In present study, on the rig test machine, the operating conditions of engine bearing were simulated to reproduce the bearing damage. The bearing wear was measured until the fatigue crack occurred. The bearing wear increased at the edges of the bearing length and the crack also was observed near the edges. The experimental results were compared to the calculated results based on the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) theory. The correlations between the bearing damage and the bearing performances by the theoretical analysis were investigated.