Effects of TiC Films on the Rolling Contact Fatigue Life and Mechanical Properties of Bearing Steel
TiC薄膜对轴承钢表面滚动接触疲劳寿命和力学性能的影响

Ti-C film is synthesized by plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition (PIII&D) technique on AISI52100 bearing steel surface. XRD patterns show that the film consists of TiC phase. Rolling contact fatigue (RCF) failure appeared at the parts of pit corrosion and delamination of the film layers, or a combination of these two modes , which are dependent on the substrate bias voltage, implanted pulse width, treatment time and surface roughness. The maximum RCF life of the treated sample is prolonged by 5.5 times at a Hertz stress level of 5.1 GPa and 90% confidence level. Compared with the substrate, the maximum microhardness and elastic modulus measured by nanoindentation method for the treated specimen are increased by 28.4% and 12.1%, respectively, and the friction coefficient decreased from 0.95 to 0.15.