Relationship between Growth of Rolling Contact Fatigue Cracks and Load Distribution

Abstract

The relationship between growth of rolling contact fatigue cracks and load distribution on an inner ring of the radial rolling bearing was investigated by a new acoustic emission (AE) source location method. The histograms of cumulative AE events at possible AE source positions located in rolling contact fatigue tests were compared with the location results given by a numerical simulation. In many tests, the location histograms were not symmetric and most of the peaks in the histogram were distributed behind the actual AE source position. These corresponded to the simulation where the effective area for propagation of the fatigue crack deviated to the entrance side for the rotational direction within the loading zone. From the comparison, it became clear that the fatigue crack had a tendency to propagate in a narrow area deviating to the entrance side in the early stage of its growth and the area spread to the exit side gradually with the growth process from the initiation of the fatigue crack to an appearance of spoiling. Presented at the 55th Annual Meeting Nashville, Tennessee May 7–11, 2000