Abstract
An analytical model has been presented to predict the vibration response of rolling bearings due to distributed defects under radial load. For bearings without defect and with race defect, the model predicts a discrete spectrum with components at outer and inner race characteristic defect frequencies for the response of the respective races. The amplitude level for race defect significantly increases at the respective frequencies in comparison to the response of a bearing without defect. For a bearing with off-size rolling element, the response is at the relative frequency of cage with respect to the frequency of motion of the corresponding race.