Experimental Investigation into the Tractive Prerolling Behavior of Balls in V-Grooved Tracks

In a rolling element system, the period of transition between motion commencement and the attainment of steady state, gross rolling, and termed prerolling is of common concern to many engineering applications. This region is marked by hysteresis friction behavior, with a characteristic friction-displacement curve, which is in particular relevant to motion characterization and control issues. In a previous paper, the authors carried out a theoretical analysis of tractive prerolling, leading to a model for simulating this phenomenon. The present paper is dedicated to the experimental investigation of tractive prerolling friction behavior, including validation of the theoretical model. Firstly, a kinematic analysis of the rolling motion in V-grooved tracks is carried out. Secondly, the influence of the normal load on the frictional behavior, in prerolling up to the attainment of gross rolling, is investigated on a dedicated test setup. Finally, the newly developed theoretical model is validated by comparison with the experimental results. Satisfactory agreement is obtained between theory and experiment