ABSTRACT
Similar to the lives of light bulbs and humans, ball and roller bearing lives, specifically rolling
contact (RC) fatigue lives, are probabilistic in nature, as shown in Figure 11.1. They do not
achieve a specific, uniquely predictable life, notwithstanding functioning in the same envir-
onment. As indicated in Chapter 10, with proper attention to bearing design, manufacture,
and application, all modes of rolling bearing failure can be avoided with the exception of RC
fatigue when contact stresses due to application loading exceed the bearing’s endurance
strength. In that situation, the life of any one bearing operating in the application can differ
significantly from that of an apparently identical unit. To estimate rolling bearing fatigue life
in a given application, statistical procedures have been established for the analysis of meas-
ured endurance data.
