TY - JOUR

T1 - Manufacturing and Evaluation of Multi-Material Axial-Bearing Washers by Tailored Forming

AU - Behrens, Bernd Arno

AU - Chugreev, Alexander

AU - Matthias, Tim

AU - Poll, Gerhard

AU - Pape, Florian

AU - Coors, Timm

AU - Hassel, Thomas

AU - Maier, Hans Jürgen

AU - Mildebrath, Maximilian

N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgments: The results presented in this paper were obtained within the Collaborative Research Centre 1153 “Process chain to produce hybrid high performance components by Tailored Forming” in the subprojects A04, C01 and C03, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—252662854. The authors thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for their financial support of this project. The subsequent processing steps to complete the hybrid component, such as heat treatment and machining, were carried out by subprojects A02 and B04.

PY - 2019/2

Y1 - 2019/2

N2 - Components subject to rolling contact fatigue, such as gears and rolling bearings, are among the fundamental machine elements in mechanical and vehicle engineering. Rolling bearings are generally not designed to be fatigue-resistant, as the necessary oversizing is not technically and economically marketable. In order to improve the load-bearing capacity, resource efficiency and application possibilities of rolling bearings and other possible multi-material solid components, a new process chain was developed at Leibniz University Hannover as a part of the Collaborative Research Centre 1153 “Tailored Forming”. Semi-finished products, already joined before the forming process, are used here to allow a further optimisation of joint quality by forming and finishing. In this paper, a plasma-powder-deposition welding process is presented, which enables precise material deposition and control of the welding depth. For this study, bearing washers (serving as rolling bearing raceways) of a cylindrical roller thrust bearing, similar to type 81212 with a multi-layer structure, were manufactured. A previously non-weldable high-performance material, steel AISI 5140, was used as the cladding layer. Depending on the degree of forming, grain-refinement within the welded material was achieved by thermo-mechanical treatment of the joining zone during the forming process. This grain-refinements lead to an improvement of the mechanical properties and thus, to a higher lifetime for washers of an axial cylindrical roller bearing, which were examined as an exemplary component on a fatigue test bench. To evaluate the bearing washers, the results of the bearing tests were compared with industrial bearings and deposition welded axial-bearing washers without subsequent forming. In addition, the bearing washers were analysed micro-tribologically and by scanning acoustic microscopy both after welding and after the forming process. Nano-scratch tests were carried out on the bearing washers to analyse the layer properties. Together with the results of additional microscopic images of the surface and cross-sections, the causes of failure due to fatigue and wear were identified.

AB - Components subject to rolling contact fatigue, such as gears and rolling bearings, are among the fundamental machine elements in mechanical and vehicle engineering. Rolling bearings are generally not designed to be fatigue-resistant, as the necessary oversizing is not technically and economically marketable. In order to improve the load-bearing capacity, resource efficiency and application possibilities of rolling bearings and other possible multi-material solid components, a new process chain was developed at Leibniz University Hannover as a part of the Collaborative Research Centre 1153 “Tailored Forming”. Semi-finished products, already joined before the forming process, are used here to allow a further optimisation of joint quality by forming and finishing. In this paper, a plasma-powder-deposition welding process is presented, which enables precise material deposition and control of the welding depth. For this study, bearing washers (serving as rolling bearing raceways) of a cylindrical roller thrust bearing, similar to type 81212 with a multi-layer structure, were manufactured. A previously non-weldable high-performance material, steel AISI 5140, was used as the cladding layer. Depending on the degree of forming, grain-refinement within the welded material was achieved by thermo-mechanical treatment of the joining zone during the forming process. This grain-refinements lead to an improvement of the mechanical properties and thus, to a higher lifetime for washers of an axial cylindrical roller bearing, which were examined as an exemplary component on a fatigue test bench. To evaluate the bearing washers, the results of the bearing tests were compared with industrial bearings and deposition welded axial-bearing washers without subsequent forming. In addition, the bearing washers were analysed micro-tribologically and by scanning acoustic microscopy both after welding and after the forming process. Nano-scratch tests were carried out on the bearing washers to analyse the layer properties. Together with the results of additional microscopic images of the surface and cross-sections, the causes of failure due to fatigue and wear were identified.

KW - Deposition welding

KW - Hybrid bearing

KW - Tailored forming

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062511244&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/met9020232

DO - 10.3390/met9020232

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85062511244

VL - 9

JO - Metals

JF - Metals

SN - 2075-4701

IS - 2

M1 - 232

ER -