Study of the Plastic Behavior of Rough Bearing Surfaces Using a Half-Space Contact Model and the Fatigue Life Estimation According to the Fatemi–Socie Model.

A multiscale approach for the fatigue life estimation of rolling bearings is presented in this paper and applied to inner rings of cylindrical roller bearings of the type NU208. The forces acting in the rolling contact are determined from system-oriented modeling at the macro level. The microscale contact simulations are carried out in a half-space contact model. The stresses on the inner ring are determined and used in the local fatigue approach, according to Fatemi–Socie, for fatigue life estimation. Four surface variants were investigated, one ideally smooth surface and three real (rough) surfaces. The three rough surface variants used different finishing processes: fine ground, hard turned, and rough ground were produced. A load case with a maximum pressure of 2.4 GPa in the roller-inner ring contact was investigated. In addition to the fatigue life estimation, the plasticity behavior (surface topography, resulting contact pressure, and residual stress) of the three manufactured surfaces stood in the focus of the work. As the comparison between experimental and simulated results confirms, good predictions can be made with the simulation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]