Analysis of the stresses in the retainer of an operational needle bearing

• Main Authors: Hao-kuo Hsu, 徐豪國
• Other Authors: Te-yen Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/20253563565056402568

碩士 === 龍華科技大學 === 機械系碩士班 === 93 === The retainer of a needle roller bearing is an important part which keeps the needle in linear contact with the surface of the rack, and assures proper performance of the whole bearing. Once the retainer gets damaged, the needle will tilt and break at last. It is observed that failure of the retainer occurred at its small round corners. However, the stress distribution over there can’t be known by experiment. Several finite element models of the retainer are built with ANSYS finite element code. Stresses generated in the retainer due to various loadings under different operational speeds are calculated. The stress distribution over the area of concern is investigated and the possibility of failure is evaluated. Since a full FEM model of the retainer needs hundreds thousands of elements and nodes, both mesh generation and problem solving are time consuming. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop simpler FEM model and efficient way of solving the problem to shorten the time required in research and development. In the current work, the skill on building full models, the methods on sub-structuring, and the techniques on model partitioning are all implemented to simulate an operational retainer under various loading conditions. It is noticed the numerical results calculated by the partitioned model are the closest to those obtained by the full model. Looking into the physical insight of the numerical results, reasonable and satisfactory physical meanings are obtained. The partitioned model is verified to be an efficient one for the FEM engineers to use during the design stage of the needle bearing.