Bearing AT has a built-in catalogue of many bearings, and after selecting any bearing based on the internal diameter, the macro-geometry of the selected bearing is automatically calculated.

In Create mode you define a new property file by selecting one of available bearings from catalogue and calculating the macro-geometry by using Compute geometry button. This can be also done by entering the basic bearing dimensions (inner diameter, outer diameter, bearing width) and the static load rating.

In Edit mode is possible to load already existing property file and change the macro-geometric parameters of the bearings manually. How to proceed not only in the Edit mode case, is explained in the following steps in Bearing AT Online Help. Meaning of all required input parameters is explained below.

In both modes, it is possible to make a preview of bearing macro-geometry. There are also sketches, which show the meaning of each macro-geometry parameter.

This dialog box allows you to create needle roller bearing property file (*.npf) or modify existing one. There are geometrical data of the bearing stored in this file. This preprocessing step will automatically generate FE meshes of bearing inner and outer ring and rolling element and submit Nastran computation (SOL101) which provides intermediate results (*.PCH) required for contact preprocessing.

 

 

Define dimensions of inner ring geometry. In order to make contact preprocessing possible, each bearing class requires to have inner ring defined. In case of Rollers and cage assemblies or Without inner ring bearing class a rolling element makes contact pair with shaft part, which is for the purpose of contact computation in Bearing AT represented by inner ring geometry defined in the Inner Ring tab of the dialog box. Neither inner ring geometry nor inertia will be applied in Adams model once a bearing element is created with previously mentioned bearing classes.

 

Define dimensions of outer ring geometry. In order to make contact preprocessing possible, each bearing class requires to have outer ring defined. In case of Rollers and cage assemblies bearing class a rolling element makes contact pair with block (housing) part, which is for the purpose of contact computation in Bearing AT represented by outer ring geometry defined in the Outer Ring tab of the dialog box. Neither outer ring geometry nor inertia will be applied in Adams model once a bearing element is created with previously mentioned bearing class.

 

The Inner Ring Mass and Outer Ring Mass card allows you to define the mass of the inner and outer ring, respectively, based on the Geometry and Material Type or by specific User Input. In the former case the mass, center of mass and inertia tensor is computed later by the mesher based on FE mesh volume. In the latter case enter all required data in current model units. In either case, inertia data are written to the *.npf file and applied to the bearing element when created.

 

 

You can define different materials for rolling elements, inner ring and outer ring. When defining via the Material Type option, you can use predefined materials from the library, or you can create a new one. Using the User input option, it is necessary to enter values of Young’s Modulus, Poisson’s Ratio and Density appropriate for the material you require.