White Etching Cracks (WECs) or White Structure Flaking (WSF) is a failure phenomenon that has been reported to emerge in rolling bearing parts for more than the past two decades. Reproduction of this failure mode for systematic investigations is a crucial point. It can be shown that by modifying the testing conditions of a FE8 type test rig, it is possible to alter the failure mechanism from classical wear failures to White Etching Crack formations. This paper describes the procedure to reproduce WECs, by varying test conditions as well as the lubricants used, and presents the results of testing different material and heat treatment variants of bearings.
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