Nondestructive Detection and Analysis of Skidding Damage for Bearing Steel 100Cr6 Using Improved Magnetic Barkhausen Noise Technique

Skidding damage, which extensively appears in the bearings at a high rotation speed, often shortens the lifetime of bearings and even induces the total failure of the bearings. This paper proposes a novel nondestructive measurement system for evaluating the degree of skidding damage by using the improved magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) technique. A ring-type probe with a bias current is designed to capture the weak MBN signal generated from the narrow section in the ferromagnetic material. It can increase the detection resolution of skidding damage compared to the commonly employed cylindrical probe. The excitation frequency of the electromagnetic field is optimized to enhance the strength of the MBN signal, and the background noise is suppressed by a bandpass filter. One sample with different degrees of skidding damage is prepared and detected. Experiments demonstrate that the skidding damage can suppress the generation of the MBN signal in the sample, and the peak amplitude of the MBN signal envelope gradually declines with the increase in the degree of skidding damage. These indicate that the skidding damage on the bearing steel can be evaluated by the proposed measurement system.