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This paper reviews the relationship between taper wheel bearing damage and vehicle noise and vibration for a body-on-frame pickup truck and a body-on-frame SUV. In addition to understanding how the different levels of bearing damage relate to vehicle noise, it also discusses the level of noise versus the damaged bearing’s position in the vehicle. For this study, the wheel bearing supplier provided front and rear bearings with various amounts of Brinell damage to the bearing raceways. The different bearings were evaluated subjectively for noise in the vehicle. After vehicle testing, the bearing raceway Brinell depths were measured to correlate the level of bearing damage to vehicle noise. The study shows the relationship between bearing Brinell dent depth and vehicle noise for body-on-frame light trucks and SUVs. The noise was most apparent in vehicles between 45 and 60 mph. For bearings with moderate levels of damage, steering inputs were required to hear noise.

During validation of a new brake lining on a light duty truck application, the brake rotor exhibited high lateral runout on the friction surfaces. As the engineering team investigated the issue more carefully, they noticed the rotor lateral runout was also changing from revolution to revolution. The team ran testing on multiple light pickup vehicles and found differences in the amount of rotor runout variation. The rotor lateral runout and runout variation can cause vibration and pulsation of the passenger seat and the steering wheel. To identify the root cause of the high level of rotor lateral runout and runout variation, measurement data was collected and analyzed from the vehicle level test. During further analysis, some of the runout variation corresponded to a wheel bearing internal frequency. The bearing internal geometry was studied to confirm what factors affected the runout variation.