Oil redistribution and replenishment on stationary bearing inner raceway

Abstract The oil redistribution in bearing during rest will greatly influence the bearing lubrication when restart. This paper presents a theoretical model to predict oil redistribution and replenishment induced by surface tension and gravity in a stationary bearing. Experiments are conducted to validate the model. The influence of different factors including oil viscosity, surface tension coefficient and initial oil layer thickness on replenishment is investigated, and the contribution of gravity and surface tension on oil migration is explored. It shows that replenishment in the stationary bearing can be positively influenced by the decrease of viscosity, the increase of surface tension coefficient and the initial oil layer.