Experimental study on polishing process of cylindrical roller bearings

Abstract

The surface quality and accuracy of the geometry of the cylindrical rollers are important factors for bearing life. This paper presents effects of machining parameters on the surface roughness, topography and roundness of cylindrical rollers through the lapping and polishing experiments. And then the surface roughness of the cylindrical rollers is optimized. The results found that the surface roughness of rollers is significantly changed in lapping process with different abrasive particle sizes, while the surface roughness has slightly reduced in polishing process. It also indicated that the smoother surfaces with better roughness can be obtained after lapping and polishing process. In addition, the surface roughness of cylindrical rollers is rapidly reduced from Ra of 0.5 µm to Ra of 0.063 µm after the 3-h lapping process and Ra of 0.013 µm after the 1-h polishing process. The surface topography of rollers can be achieved by the smoother surface when loads are from 25 to 35 N in lapping process, and the loads are from 35 to 40 N in polishing process. Finally, the Taguchi method is applied to optimize the surface roughness in polishing process. The result found that the optimal surface roughness achieves 0.015 µm with respect to the time of 35 min and type of 4000# Al 2 O 3 .