Effect of material anisotropy on rolling contact fatigue life under dry and lubricated point contact conditions: A numerical study

Abstract

Rolling bearings have to operate reliably and efficiently under increasingly severe conditions. Previously ignored effects of material inhomogeneity with varying crystallographic orientation may significantly affect rolling contact fatigue life. In this paper, it is demonstrated that Multigrid techniques allow the computational analysis of such effects in a full 3D setting. Using grain configurations created by Voronoi tessellation, the dependence of the maximum von Mises stress, and of a predicted fatigue life stress field integral with load, friction, mean grain size and crystallographic orientation distribution is shown. Crystallographic orientation variations are shown to potentially significantly reduce predicted rolling contact fatigue life relative to homogeneous isotropic material. The results contribute to material optimization and to computational diagnostics of criticality of material crystallographic (sub)structures.