Investigation of failure mechanism and modification for film-lubricated precise angular-contact ball bearing

This paper describes an experimental investigation into the performance and lubrication failure mechanism of precise angular-contact ball bearings treated with MoS₂-sputtered film, etc. As an important executive component of various spacecrafts, there are some strict requirements on the lubrication performance of angular-contact ball bearing, but the related experimental data are rare to see in literatures. In this experiment, the lubrication performances of MoS₂-sputtered ball bearing pairs were evaluated by using lifetime test as a main method, and the topographies and compositions of working surfaces were investigated through SEM, AES and EDS. The systematical experiment results reveal that the degradation and failure process of solid lubrication for such ball bearing is divided into three stages with different characters. A supposed failure mechanism has been proposed. An improved lubrication treatment based on above mechanism was conducted for the precise ball bearings, and a later test showed that long endurance life with more than 10⁸ revolutions has been reached.