Effect of cold rolling on plastic deformation and microstructure of bearing ring

Abstract

Bearing ring blanks of the high-speed rail bearings, machine tool spindle bearings and wind power bearings have been manufactured through the ring rolling technology. Yet, the microstructure evolution of bearing ring in cold ring rolling remains unclear. In this work, the plastic strain distribution of the rolled ring is first simulated. Then, the microstructure of bearing ring is studied by the electron backscatter diffraction technique. Furthermore, the microstructure changes in cold ring rolling are investigated through band contrast images, and the texture evolutions after various deformation ratios are analysed by the technique of 3D-Euler space distribution. This work provides valuable guidelines for enhanced understanding the role of the cold ring rolling technology on the microstructure evolution of bearing rings.

Keywords:

• Bearing ring
• Plastic deformation
• Microstructure and texture evolution
• Cold ring rolling

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51605354), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WUT: 2015IVA021), the Innovative Research Team Development Program of Ministry of Education of China (No. IRT13087), and the High-End Talent Leading Program of Hubei Province (No. 2012-86) for the support given to this research.