Predicting Material Performance in Rolling Contact Fatigue via Torsional Fatigue

Abstract

Evaluating new materials for rolling element bearings (REBs) is an expensive, time-consuming, and difficult process. This work presents a continuum damage mechanics (CDM)-based finite element model (FEM) that incorporates gradual material degradation under cyclic loading and discrete material representation to predict rolling contact fatigue (RCF) failure. The fully reversed orthogonal shear stress was considered the critical stress for the CDM RCF modeling. Torsional fatigue results available from the open literature were used to determine the critical parameters for CDM FEM. In contrast to previous modeling approaches, in this investigation the CDM material parameters were considered probabilistic in nature to represent variations in material strength or resistance to fatigue. This modification to the modeling procedure resulted in RCF life predictions that capture life scatter characteristic of the RCF phenomena for REBs. Based on the model results, a fatigue life equation was developed to corroborate the Lundberg and Palmgren (LP) theory. The results obtained from the predictive life equation generated from the CDM-based FEM using material parameters obtained from torsional fatigue results are in good agreement with the LP model.