%0 Journal Article %T Effect of Carbonitriding on Endurance Life of Ball Bearing Produced from SAE 52100 Bearing Steels %A Karthikeyan Rajan %A Vinod Joshi %A Arindam Ghosh %J Journal of Surface Engineered Materials and Advanced Technology %P 172-177 %@ 2161-489X %D 2013 %I Scientific Research Publishing %R 10.4236/jsemat.2013.33023 %X
The present paper reports the unusual
enhancement of endurance life of ball bearings subjected to carbonitriding treatment. The microstructure was
characterized by scanning electron microscopy and correlated with hardness and
X-ray diffraction analysis. Endurance tests at 90% reliability revealed that
the carbonitrided bearings exhibit nearly ten times more life than the
non-carbonitrided bearings. This is attributed to synergic combination of
retained austenitic, fine
martensitic microstructure and ultrafine carbide precipitates obtained by
carbonitriding treatment.