| Summary: | An external load applied to a rolling bearing is distributed among the rolling elements. This rolling element load distribution is changed according to the way the external load is applied or the internal clearance of the bearing. And, it will affect the rolling contact fatigue life of the bearing. Therefore, several experimental methods for determining the load distribution of rolling bearings have been proposed so far. Their methods, however, could not provide dynamic load distributions while the rolling elements make one revolution along the raceway. Besides, there has been little research on measuring the rolling element load distribution in detail by changing the internal clearance variously. In this work, the rolling element load has been measured by using an optical fiber sensor mounted on a roller of a double row tapered roller bearing to be measured, and the effect of the internal clearance on the rolling element load has been investigated. As a result, it has been clarified that the load distribution factor decreases with the increase in the axial clearance, and as the radial load becomes small, the degree of reduction of the load distribution factor due to the increase in the axial clearance increases. Further, this tendency has been confirmed to be consistent with the numerical results.
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