Modelling of ball-raceway contacts in a slewing bearing with non-linear springs

During the operation, a slewing bearing is always subjected to a set of combined loads. It is the source of deformation of ball-raceway contacts, rings, and even supporting structures. In practice, deformation of rings and supporting structures is often neglected for simplification, that is, they are supposed to be ideally stiff. To take elasticity of rings and supporting (fixed) structures into consideration, the finite-element method (FEM) is applied. Due to hundreds of contact pairs and the difference in the scale of contact area and rings or supporting structures, it is difficult to simultaneously model both local ball-raceway contacts and the global slewing rings in a slewing bearing. The article developed a simple method to solve the problem, where the contacts are replaced by non-linear springs.