Contact pressure of indented wide elliptical contacts: dry and lubricated cases

Indents perturb the pressure and stress distribution and increase the failure risk of rolling element bearings. A numerical study of the pressure perturbation is proposed. An existing dry contact model is extended to account for the indent shoulder influence and the pressure collapse in deeper indents. Moreover, results for pure rolling lubricated contacts are presented. Finally; the ellipticity influence is studied for both dry and lubricated contacts. Keywords: indentation, contamination, pollution, fatigue, rolling bearing life