Rolling Contact Fatigue Evaluation of Advanced Bearing Steels Available to Purchase

A series of rolling contact fatigue tests were performed on nine advanced rolling element bearing materials and processes in combination with three lubricants (an unformulated ester base stock, a qualified MIL-L-23699, and an advanced MIL-L-23699-type lubricant) in order to determine their rolling contact fatigue performance. The performance of each material was compared with the performance of a baseline AMS-6490 (AISI M-50) steel. The results indicate that (1) all of the test materials and processes perform at least as well as AMS-6490, (2) the best performing materials were a powder-processed CRB-7 and an AMS-5749, and (3) the performance of one material (CBS-1000M) improved with the use of fully formulated lubricants.