1 Copyright 2012 by ASME

Proceedings of ASME 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition

IMECE2012
November 9-15, 2012, Houston, Texas, USA
IMECE2012-88810
A NEW HIGH-PRECISION BEARING MEASURING SYSTEM FOR NON-REPETITIVE
RUN-OUT (NRRO)
Zhaohui Yang
1
, Jun Hong
1
, Jinhua Zhang
1
, Michael Yu Wang
1, 2
, Jian Liu
1

1
State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems
Engineering
School of Mechanical Engineering
Xian JiaoTong University
Xian, Shaanxi, China
2
Department of Mechanical and Automation
Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT
As ultra-precision index of high-precision ball bearings,
the value of non-repetitive run-out (NRRO) directly influences
the rotation accuracy in complex mechanical system. Reducing
NRRO contributes to improve the quality of manufacturing in
machining tools. This paper developed a new high-precision
bearing measuring system to analyze the NRRO of an angular
contact ball bearing caused by geometrical errors of bearings
parts. The characteristic of measuring system as follows:
(1) The air-bearing spindle that is drive by servomotor is
used to support the test bearing to ensure the system
accuracy and continuously variable;
(2) The air-bearing of flat is used to load of non-contact
on the test bearing along axial direction for simulation
conditions of bearings;
(3) The multi-capacitive displacement sensors are used to
measure run-out of the air-bearing spindle vibration of
the radial direction, then the run-out is separated as
system error;
(4) The NRRO of axial and radial directions caused by
geometrical errors of the rings raceways and the balls
could be analyzed.
Keywords: NRRO; air bearing; angular contact ball
bearing; non-contact load; error separation

1 INTRODUCTION
Rolling element bearings are widely used in applications
of complex mechanical system as important components. With
the operating conditions of the bearing becoming extremely and
the demand for high precision equipment becoming
increasingly strict, it is even important to analyze the bearing
performance through theoretical and experimental method. The
design of high precision machine requires consideration of
operating performance of bearings and it is a crucial in
determining the overall quality [1].
In fact, however, a rolling bearing for machine tool is used
in a continuous revolving motion that involves more than one
revolution. As a result, the actual run-out accuracy with a
rolling bearing includes elements that are not synchronous with
the revolution of the bearing (for example, a difference in
diameter among rolling elements involved, as well as roundness
on the raceway surfaces of inner ring and outer ring), causing
the trajectory of plotting with running accuracies to vary with
each revolution [2]. The run-out of an element not in
synchronization with the revolutions of bearing is known as
NRRO (Non-Repetitive Run-Out) and is equivalent to the
amplitude in the Lissajous figure. For the machining tool, the
machining process of outside surface, if the outside surface is
cut with a new trajectory with every revolution, the outside
shape of work piece will be distorted. Furthermore, if the
accuracies of shaft and housing are not high enough or bearings
are assembled onto the shaft and/or housing improperly, the
bearing ring can be deformed, possibly leading to a run-out that
is not in synchronization with the revolutions of bearing.
Abundant research has been done on such directions.
Okamoto [3] is study on the relationship between the
geometrical accuracy of the components and the trajectory of
the rotation center through experiments and numerical
calculation. However, their findings only serve as qualitative
analysis on how errors of raceway shape, number & diameter
difference of the balls influence the NRRO of Radial. Noguchi
and Kanada [4] develop a measuring system for radial non-
repetitive run-out (NRRO), the radial accuracy of air spindle
less than 0.25um, but the axial load burdened by non-contact
was 100N at maximum. Eric R. Marsh [5] develops a bearing
analyzer that has a high-speed air spindle, but the axial load is
not completely non-contact. This paper aims to develop a
measuring system to analyze the NRRO of an angular ball
bearing in the working status to demonstrate the theoretical for
reducing or controlling the NRRO by optimizing process of
bearing components. This measuring system consisted by air
bearing spindle and drive module, axial non-contact load
module, radial non-contact load module (extension), measuring
module.
2 Copyright 2012 by ASME
2 MEASURING SYSTEM
The design of measuring system is based on the
measuring methods for rolling bearings defined in ISO 1132-
2:2001 (Rolling bearings- Tolerances-Part 2: Measuring and
gauging principles and methods) [6]. A schematic view of
measuring system for NRRO is shown in Fig.1.
The characteristics of the measuring system are as
follows:
i. Air bearing spindle and drive module: the air bearing
spindle and servo motor are used to drive and support the
test bearing for reducing error and continuously viable.
ii. Non-contact loading module: the air bearings pressure pad
are used to load on the test bearings along axial direction for
simulation conditions of bearings, the loading of radial
direction will be expanded in the further.
iii. Measuring module: the three capacitive displacement
sensors are used to measure run-out of the air spindle
vibration of the radial direction, and the two laser
displacement sensors are used to measure run-out of the
bearing, then the system errors can be separated, the data
are not affected by the eccentricity; the accelerometer is
used to measure the vibration of test bearing.


Fig.1. The schematic view of measuring system

Fig. 2. Measuring system of ball bearing
Fig. 2 is the photograph of system for measuring NRRO.
In this research, in order to simulate the working status of
rolling bearing, the air-bearing spindle of large carrying
capacity is used to support test bearing, and the cylinder drive
the air-bearing pressure pad for axial non-contact load. The
specifications of measuring system are shown as Table 1.
Table 1. Specifications of measuring system
Test bearing size 100mm for inner ring
150mm for outer ring
Rotational speed 0-3000r/min
Axial load of non-contact 150kg at maximum
Radial load of non-contact (Extension) 80kg at maximum
In the measuring module, there are three capacitive
displacement sensors to measure the run-out of air bearing
spindle, and three-points error separation technique is used to
separate the roundness of the air bearing spindle. The angle of
rotated is recorded by the rotary encoder in order to separate the
spindle NRRO. The Lissajous figure is used to evaluate the
NRRO. Fig. 3 shows the evaluation method of NRRO.

Outer ring cover
Air spindle for support
Laser displacement
sensor
Capacitive
displacement sensor
Air cylinder
Air bearing for axial load
3 Copyright 2012 by ASME

Fig. 3. Evaluation method of NRRO (Lissajous figure)
The radial run-out of the air-bearing spindle at the
different speeds are shown in fig.4.



Fig. 4. The NRRO of ari-bearing spindle.(Unit: mm;2000RPM)
Table 2 Measuring conditions
Test bearing 7014AC/P4
Rotational speed 30, 60,120, 480, 960, 1920 RPM
Load of axial 700, 900, 1100, 13001500 N

Table 2 shows the measuring conditions in this research.
The axial force was defined in the ISO 1132-2:2001. However,
this research is not only focus on the relationships between
rotational speed and the NRRO, but also research the trend
caused by varies of the axial load. Therefore, in this research,
measurements of the speed from a low-speed to a high-speed
(3000 r/min) and the axial load from 10kg to 100kg (150kg is
maximum) are performed in phase.
3 MEASUREMENT RESULTS
Fig. 5 shows the NRRO of 100 rounds of the test bearing,
7014AC/P4, at the different speeds. The width of arc is related
to the overall value of NRRO.


(a.30RPM) (b.60RPM)

(c.120RPM) (d.480RPM)

(e.960RPM) (f.1920RPM)
Fig. 5. The NRRO of bearing at different speeds. (Unit: mm)
We can conclude, the value of NRRO increases as the
rotational speed increase. The results of the NRRO at the
different axial loads are the same as fig. 5, but the value of
NRRO decreases as the axial load increases.
The overall value is evaluated as the sum of all the run-out
elements original from the geometrical errors of bearing
components and the accidental error elements such as
vibrations in the measurement. However, the errors of air-
bearing spindle will be separated. In the future, based on the
geometrical errors, the test bearings will be separated to several
groups to analyze the relationship between the geometrical
errors and the NRRO. For example, the roundness of rings
groove and the waviness of balls.
NRRO
X
Y
4 Copyright 2012 by ASME
4 CONCLUSIONS
This paper develop a measuring system for the non-
repetitive run-out (NRRO) of rolling bearings of machine tools,
and the bearing of machine tools, 7014AC/P4, was measured in
different axial loads and rotation speeds. In according with the
results, the main conclusions are as follows:
The run-out accuracy of bearings can be evaluated in a
wide range of rotational speeds. The relationship
between the rotational speed of bearing and the run-out
accuracy was analyzed quantitively.
The run-out accuracy of bearings can be evaluated in the
different axial load.
In the future, the authors will expand non-contact loading
module for loading of radial direction and install laser
displacement sensor in the axial direction for the NRRO of
axial. Then, the 3D-NRRO of rolling bearing under the
combined load (Axial and Radial) is measured.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors gratefully wish to acknowledge the supported
by the State Key Program of National Natural Science of China
under grant No.50935006 and the National Basic Research
Program of China (973 Program) under grant No.
2011CB706606.
REFERENCES
[1] Slocum, A. H., 1992, Precision Machine Design, Society of Man-
ufacturing Engineers, Dearborn, MI.
[2] MTN, Precision Rolling Bearings, Technical Data.
[3] Okamoto, J., Ohmori, T., 2001, Study on Run-Out of Ball Bearings-
Relation between Unroundness of Race and Locus of Shaft in Rotation,
Journal of Japanese Society of Tribologists, 46, pp. 578-584.
[4] Noguchi, S., Kanada, T., 2008, Development of measuring system for
radial non-repetitive run-out (NRRO) and perception about present state
of angular contact ball bearing for machine tools, Tribology International,
41, pp.1176-1180.
[5] Marsh, E.R., 2010, Precision Spindle Metrology, 2nd edition, DEStech
Publications.
[6] ISO 1132-2:2001, Rolling bearings -- Tolerances -- Part 2: Measuring and
gauging principles and methods