Statistical Investigation of the Fatigue Life of Deep-Groove Ball Bearings

Fatigue is an important factor in determining the service life of ball bearings. Bearing manufacturers are therefore constantly engaged in fatigue-testing operations in order to obtain information relating fatigue life to load and other factors. Several of the larger manufacturers have recently pooled their test data in a cooperative effort to set up uniform and standardized ball-bearing application formulas, which would benefit the many users of antifriction bearings. These data were compiled by the American Standards Association, which subsequently requested that the National Bureau of Standards perform the necessary analyses. This paper summarizes the principal results of the analyses undertaken by the Bureau, and describes the statistical procedures used in the investigation.