An investigation of partial cone cracks in silicon nitride balls

Hybrid silicon nitride ball/steel raceway bearings are used in advanced aircraft engines and space propulsion systems. Silicon nitride is a brittle material and partial cone cracks, or c-cracks, originate from contact interactions during manufacturing. These cracks limit the Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF) life of the balls. Here the authors examine subsurface Hertzian stresses between contacting spheres, using an analytical stress solution, to investigate their applicability to predicting and characterizing crack size and shape. The authors also incrementally develop these cracks through an iterative crack growth procedure using a 3D finite element analysis. Comparisons are then made to experimental images of the flaws in silicon nitride. By varying the initial conditions during the contact interaction of the balls we demonstrate that a wide range of cone and partial cone cracks, observed in practice, can be generated using both the analytical and numerical fracture mechanics approaches. Furthermore, an expression is presented for the impact velocity that induces a cone crack from a maximum radial stress criterion at the contact periphery.