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.

To enhance tribological contacts under cyclic load, high performance materials are required. Utilizing the same high-strength material for the whole machine element is not resource-efficient. In order to manufacture machine elements with extended functionality and specific properties, a combination of different materials can be used in a single component for a more efficient material utilization. By combining different joining techniques with subsequent forming, multi-material or tailored components can be manufactured. To reduce material costs and energy consumption during the component service life, a less expensive lightweight material should be used for regions remote from the highly stressed zones. The scope is not only to obtain the desired shape and dimensions for the finishing process, but also to improve properties like the bond strength between different materials and the microscopic structure of the material. The multi-material approach can be applied to all components requiring different properties in separate component regions such as shafts, bearings or bushes. The current study exemplarily presents the process route for the production of an axial bearing washer by means of tailored forming technology. The bearing washers were chosen to fit axial roller bearings (type 81212). The manufacturing process starts with the laser wire cladding of a hard facing made of martensitic chromium silicon steel (1.4718) on a base substrate of S235 (1.0038) steel. Subsequently, the bearing washers are forged. After finishing, the surfaces of the bearing washers were tested in thrust bearings on an FE-8 test rig. The operational test of the bearings consists in a run-in phase at 250 rpm. A bearing failure is determined by a condition monitoring system. Before and after this, the bearings were inspected by optical and ultrasonic microscopy in order to examine whether the bond of the coat is resistant against rolling contact fatigue. The feasibility of the approach could be proven by endurance test. The joining zone was able to withstand the rolling contact stresses and the bearing failed due to material-induced fatigue with high cycle stability.

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