Rolling contact fatigue using solid thin film lubrication

► Rolling contact fatigue in high vacuum at 130 Hz rotational speed. ► 79 completed tests covering two ball sizes, two ball materials, and two rod materials. ► Thickness of thin film silver lubrication has the most influence on test life for this coating process. ► Good agreement using a third-body model with a Control Volume Fraction Coverage assumption. Agreement with intermediate and post-test silver thickness results. ► Rapid accumulation of stress cycles, test results in days instead of weeks or months.