The commonly known effects of both the rotating speeds and external loads on the bearing dynamics or life behaviors are mostly caused by its cage dynamics, because of the complicated contact and collision interactions between the cage and other parts such as the inner or outer rings and balls. In this paper, experimental investigation of dynamic motions of a cage is carried out under various rotating speeds and external loads in a ball bearing. On a bearing test rig, the cage motions in axial and radial directions are measured by use of eddy transducers installed inside the bearing house and the subpanel. Then the measured results are analyzed by fast Fourier transform and compared at different operating conditions including rotating speeds, axial and radial forces, or moments. The three-dimensional space motions of the cage are also constructed to illustrate its different modes. Results reveal that the cage motions are typically periodic in the three directions. The motion frequencies consist of the cage rotating frequency and its multi-frequency, the inner ring rotating frequency, and also some combination frequencies of the cage and inner ring. The obtained characteristic frequencies of the cage motion in axial are similar to that in radial, but different in the variety of amplitudes under the same operating conditions. The increment of rotating speeds and axial loads of the bearing gradually make the whirl trajectories of the cage mass center regular, and enlarge its whirl radii. Instead, the whirl trajectories change from well-defined patterns to complicated ones, and its whirl radii decrease on increasing the radial loads and moments of the bearing. All the obtained experimental results are useful references for dynamic design and life prediction of high-speed and low-load bearings commonly used in many machines.

Low-speed and heavy-load slewing bearings are applied broadly for major mechanical equipment. Compared with ordinary bearings, large slewing bearings have complex structures and work in variable environments. In order to increase productivity, reduce maintenance costs, and ensure the safety of people and equipment, it is of great importance to monitor and diagnose faults in real time. This paper aims at providing a state-of-the-art review on methods for condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of low-speed and heavy-load slewing bearings, including methods based on vibration analysis, acoustic emission technique, oil condition and temperature variation. Additionally, this paper discusses advantages and disadvantages of different methods. Finally, the current needs and challenges are presented to provide a reference for future research.

In this paper, vibration control of an aero pipeline system using active constrained layer damping treatment has been investigated in terms of the vibration and stress distribution. A three-dimensional finite element model of such a pipeline with active constrained layer damping (ACLD) patches is developed. The transfer of the driving force under harmonic voltage is analyzed based on the finite element model. The vibration control of the pipeline with active constrained layer damping treatment under different voltages is computed to analyze the influence of control parameters and structural parameters on the control effect. An experiment platform is developed to validate the above relations. Results show that the performance of the active constrained layer damping treatment is affected by the elastic modulus and thickness of the viscoelastic layer, control voltage and structure size. The performance increases significantly with the rising of the control voltage and cover area of ACLD patches among these parameters.

It is necessary to use the thermal network method for thermal analysis of the bearing, but there are still some shortcomings. In this paper, a novel thermal network model of the bearing transient temperature is developed considering the thermal-fluid-solid coupling effects. First, the quasi-static analysis of the bearing is carried out considering the thermal expansion effect, and the heat generation, heat transfer, and heat dissipation are studied. Then, the coupling effects between the oil characteristics, heat generation, structure parameters, and temperature (thermal-fluid-solid) during the operation of the bearing are discussed, and the transient thermal network model of the bearing-shaft-bearing housing system is established. Test results indicate that the existing models (without thermal-fluid-solid coupling) have large temperature deviation, while the proposed model in this paper considering the thermal-fluid-solid coupling effects is much more accurate. Finally, the effects of rotational speed, load, oil temperature, and oil flowrate on the temperature rise are all achieved and discussed.

This paper proposes a novel optimization layout method for supporting clamps in a pipeline system. In this method, the global sensitivity analysis based on the Sobol method is presented to determine the influence of clamp position on the first-order frequency difference, the maximum vibration response displacement, and the maximum vibration stress. The modeling density of the finite element calculation is determined, and then a surrogate model of the relationship between the optimized input and the output is established through the neural network. The optimized position and orientation of the clamp are obtained by the genetic algorithm. Finally, a typical pipeline with clamps are conducted as an example to verify the effectiveness of the proposed optimization method. The simulations were compared with the experiment, and the result shows that the proposed optimization method can reduce the vibration of the pipeline system significantly, thus providing a new method for the arrangement of clamps in pipeline system.