Abstract: Heavy-duty roller bearing is a kind of machine element widely used in large equipment, and its internal high stress has great influence on its service life. A finite element model for dynamic contact analysis of the roller bearing is established and then two kinds of plastic material models, namely, the bilinear isotropic models and the plastic kinematical model, are chosen in modeling. Then the stress conditions in different load conditions are calculated with the material models. The calculation results are compared with the results obtained by applying the linear elastic material model into the finite element model proposed in previous work. In this way, the effects of the plastic deformation in stress calculation of the roller bearing can be studied, and it is helpful for the heavy-duty roller bearing design. According to the simulation results, stress calculated with the model using plastic material is smaller than that with the elastic material. Besides, material models have great influence on the time when locking occurs, so that radial displacement of the shaft calculated by elastic material model is much larger than that obtained by plastic material model.

Key words: Explicit dynamics, Finite element, Plastic deformation, Roller bearing, Numerical simulation, Blade angle, Pump as turbine, Trapezoidal cross-section volute, Pump