The stiffness variation of ceramic ball bearing is similar to that of all-steel bearing, but the variation is relatively gentle.

Under positioning preloading, the centrifugal force of inner ring and ball and the action of frictional heat increase the contact load of inner and outer ring, while the contact Angle of outer ring decreases, and the contact Angle of inner ring increases, thus increasing the contact stiffness. However, the decrease of the contact Angle of outer ring makes the increase of axial and angular stiffness slow.

Under constant pressure preloading, the increase of centrifugal force increases the contact load and the contact Angle decreases.Because the inner and outer rings allow axial displacement, while the inner ring contact load is basically unchanged, but the contact Angle increases.The thermal displacement and centrifugal displacement have little effect on the contact load and contact Angle of the inner and outer rings.

Although the normal contact stiffness of the outer ring increases, the normal contact stiffness of the inner ring is basically unchanged. The result of series action increases the radial stiffness to some extent, but not much, while the decrease of the contact Angle of the outer ring significantly reduces the axial and angular stiffness.

Under positioning preloading, the stiffness of ceramic ball bearing is smaller than that of all-steel bearing, while under constant pressure preloading, the stiffness of ceramic ball bearing is larger than that of all-steel bearing.

Under positioning preloading, the contact load of the all-steel bearing is more than twice that of the ceramic ball bearing, and the stiffness of the all-steel bearing is greater than that of the ceramic ball bearing, although the elastic modulus of the ceramic ball is high.However, under constant pressure preloading, the contact load of inner ring changes little, and the high elastic modulus of ceramic ball makes the ceramic ball bearing stiffness larger than that of all-steel bearing.