A study on the effect of subsurface crack propagation on rolling contact fatigue in a bearing ring.

To study the subsurface fatigue crack propagation under rolling contact fatigue (RCF), a subsurface fatigue crack is firstly observed in a ball bearing race. Then, a three-dimensional model of a bearing ring containing a subsurface crack is used to evaluate fatigue crack propagation based on stress intensity factor (SIF) calculations. Several parameters, such as the crack shape, depth and size, are varied to investigate their effects on RCF in the bearing ring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]