Work

Order-of-magnitude fatigue life extension in bearing steels via microstructure tailoring around inclusions

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: A novel heat treatment introduces refined bainite sheaves into the martensite matrix of a bearing steel, particularly concentrating them in the vicinity of inclusions by leveraging the stress fields induced by the inclusions themselves. Among these, the bainite sheaves distributed around the inclusions play a decisive role in enhancing fatigue life. Mechanistically, multi-scale characterization and crystal plasticity simulations reveal that this bainite promotes compatible deformation and mitigates strain localization in the adjacent martensite. Such microstructure tailoring enlarges the FGA and increases the fatigue life by 11-fold. This improvement underscores the critical role of local matrix toughness in delaying fatigue damage.

Source: Materials Research Letters

DOI: 10.1080/21663831.2026.2658606

Authors: Binxun Xu, Tengyuan Liu, Zhonghua Jiang, Pei Wang, Dianzhong Li

Institutions: University of Science and Technology of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Language: English

Topic: Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Steels

Subfield: Mechanical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,459

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China