Numerical determination of carrying capacity of large rolling bearings

An exploitation of large axial bearings includes some load peaks, which cause permanent deformation of rolling contact. The plastic strain of base material under the hardened rolling layer starts to grow. The consequence may be micro-cracks on the edge of the hardened layer or also pealing of the hardened layer. Because of that we have used in our computation a damage model, which includes isotropic and kinematic hardening and growth of damage. Damage model allows us to follow the variation of elastic and plastic stress and deformation as a function of the number of cycles. The article shows how the described model can be used for the determination of the actual carrying capacity of the rolling contact in low speed axial bearings.