Ultrasonic Measurement of Cylindrical Roller Bearing Lubrication Using High Pulse Repletion Rates

This paper describes a measurement of lubricant-film thickness in a roller bearing using a new ultrasonic pulser-receiver, which has a maximum pulse repetition rate (PRR) of 100 kHz. The experimental results show that a higher PRR can help to get more measurement points and more details of the oil-film thickness distribution. Furthermore, the influence of rotor vibration response for the oil-film thickness is discussed, which is in keeping with the simulation result. Finally, the limits of the PRR are discussed in detail and the effect of the transducer focal zone size is also observed.