Abstract: The preload greatly affects the operating state and service life of bearings. To ensure the reasonable assembly of the spindle bearings， the position of zero clearance for the bearings needs to be determined. Firstly， the variation of clearance is calculated by using the thick-walled cylinder theory to determine the zero clearance position of the bearings. Then， the finite element displacement model of bearing zero clearance is established， and a more accurate calculation method of zero clearance position is proposed. Considering the influence of random factors， the Kriging surrogate model is proposed to analyze the probability distribution characteristics of the inner and outer ring positions under the zero clearance of wind turbine spindle bearings. Finally， numerical examples show that the maximum error predicted by the Kriging model is within 0.1%， indicating that the proposed method has higher accuracy and applicability.

Key words: wind turbine; spindle bearing; probability analysis; finite element model; Kriging surrogate model