Brinelling

The very small indentations can quickly lead to improper operation, such as chattering or excess vibration, which in turn can accelerate other forms of wear, such as spalling and ultimately, failure of the bearing.

It usually occurs in situations where a significant load force is distributed over a relatively small surface area.

Brinelling typically results from a heavy or repeated impact load, either while stopped or during rotation, though it can also be caused by just one application of a force greater than the material limit.

Brinelling can be caused by a heavy load resting on a stationary bearing for an extended length of time.

It is a common cause of roller bearing failures, and loss of preload in bolted joints when a hardened washer is not used.

A rolling element bearing's static load rating is defined to avoid this failure type.

This forms wear marks caused by contact with the bearings and the races in specific areas, but not in others, leaving an uneven wear-pattern that can become quite deep before failure occurs, resembling brinelling.

However, the marks are usually too wide, due to the motion of the bearing, and do not exactly match the shape of the rolling elements, and therefore this type of wear can be differentiated from true brinelling.

Precession between a rotating shaft in a hole, caused by excess clearance due to wear. If a bearing with four balls were located at the blue circumference of the shaft, each ball positioned at the corners of the square, contact of those balls with the red, outer bearing-race only occurs in discrete areas along that race, causing vibration, noise, and accelerated wear, and leaving indentations that resemble brinelling, but can be differentiated from true brinelling.