Development of a Bearing Test Bench to Investigate Root Causes of Bearing Current Damages

The present paper describes a novel approach of an experimental setup for a bearing test bench to measure the electric impedance of rolling bearings. In this examination, the developed test bench is put in operation and different lubrication types are investigated regarding the bearings’ capacitance and its variation. Further, the adapted theory from literature is compared to the results of the bearing capacity measurements. This first study reveals many additional influencing parameters, which must be addressed to reduce discrepancies and to understand the phenomena of electric damage of rolling bearings in traction applications.