A New Rolling Contact Surface and “No Run-In” Performance Bearings

Abstract

Plasticity indexes are usually used to describe the elastic-plastic deformation properties of a rough surface. The contact surfaces of any new rolling element bearing always change during the bearing run-in period until arriving upon a relatively stable surface texture. In this paper, a new random isotropic surface with very low plasticity index is proposed and created for the surfaces of rolling elements bearings. From both the calculated surface parameters and the run-in torque test results, the special rolling contact surfaces demonstrated “No Run-In” characteristics. Lower running torque is obtained from bearing tests and longer fatigue life is also expected by the subsurface stress analysis.