A NEW ROLLING-CONTACT SURFACE AND NO RUN-IN PERFORMANCE BEARINGS

Plasticity indexes are usually used to describe the elastic-plastic de formation properties of a rough surface. The contact surfaces of any n ew rolling element bearing always change during the bearing run-in per iod until arriving upon a relatively stable surface texture. In this p aper, a new random isotropic surface with very low plasticity index is proposed and created for the surfaces of rolling elements bearings. F rom 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 test s and longer fatigue life is also expected by the subsurface stress an alysis.