Influence of Fiber Flow on Rolling Contact Fatigue Life: Model Validation for Non-Metallic Inclusion

摘要

ABSTRACT: Bearings are some of the most important engineering components. Safety considerations mean that, for many applications, failure in service has to be avoided at all cost. It is thus critical to estimate the time a component will survive in service. In most cases, for steel bearing components, rolling contact fatigue (RCF) failures occur through initiation and propagation of cracks originating on non-metallic inclusions present in the steel (as a result of elaboration conditions). In this context, the inclusions distribution in a particular component is critical in determining its performance in RCF. Moreover, inclusions morphology and spatial distribution (e.g., stringers) have been shown to have a significant effect on RCF life. The present paper deals with the validation of a recent model [Stienon, A., Fazekas, A., Buffiere, J. Y, Daguier, P., Merchi, F, and Vincent, A., "A New Methodology for Predicting Fatigue Properties of Bearing Steels: From X-Ray Micro-Tomography and Ultrasonic Measurements to the Bearing Lives Distribution," J. ASTM Int., Vol. 7, No. 3, 2010], developed to predict RCF life on the basis of measured inclusions distributions and taking into account non-uniform spatial distributions. Results are compared with experimental data for the case of flat washer tests. It is shown that the model not only exhibits satisfactory agreement with experimental results, but also allows to correctly predict the influence of stringers orientation (and thus of fiber flow) on RCF life.