Experimental investigation on evolution of surface damage and topography parameters during rolling contact fatigue tests

Abstract

AbstractNowadays, micropitting is perceived as one of the prevalent wear mechanisms, which is responsible for the breakdown of high power density (power throughput/weight) machines. The current work demonstrates the evolution of surface damage and surface topography parameters during micropitting tests. The test surfaces are examined at different load stages utilizing 3D optical profiler, optical microscope, and scanning electron microscope. The effect of slide‐to‐roll ratio (SRR) on surface damage and topography parameters is also presented. It is observed that the severity of micropitting increases with an increase in the number of cycles. It is concluded that surface bearing index (Sbi), kurtosis (Sku), maximum valley height (Sv), and autocorrelation length (Sal) are positively correlated with surface damage, whereas mean summit curvature (Ssc) and skewness (Ssk) are negatively correlated with surface damage. Surface texture ratio (Str) and power spectral density (PSD) of test surfaces are used for analysing surface texture, and it is found that deterioration in surface texture occurs after 6 million cycles. It is also concluded that geometrical isotropy increases with an increase in SRR.