Hybrid cylindrical roller thrust bearing washers of type 81212 were manufactured by tailored forming. An AISI 1022M base material, featuring a sufficient strength for structural loads, was cladded with the bearing steel AISI 52100 by plasma transferred arc welding (PTA). Though AISI 52100 is generally regarded as non-weldable, it could be applied as a cladding material by adjusting PTA parameters. The cladded parts were investigated after each individual process step and subsequently tested under rolling contact load. Welding defects that could not be completely eliminated by the subsequent hot forming were characterized by means of scanning acoustic microscopy and micrographs. Below the surface, pores with a typical size of ten µm were found to a depth of about 0.45 mm. In the material transition zone and between individual weld seams, larger voids were observed. Grinding of the surface after heat treatment caused compressive residual stresses near the surface with a relatively small depth. Fatigue tests were carried out on an FE8 test rig. Eighty-two percent of the calculated rating life for conventional bearings was achieved. A high failure slope of the Weibull regression was determined. A relationship between the weld defects and the fatigue behavior is likely.

The risk of weld defects increases when laser beam welding of round bars is performed in a rotational process. The reason is heat accumulation, which changes process conditions. The analysis of weld pool shape and weld defects in the course of a weld seam is essential for being able to evaluate the overall weld quality and to set up control measures. This study focuses on laser beam welding of round bars with partial welds and various welding speeds. The experiments are carried out with 1.7035 round bars of 30 mm diameter. For partial welds, a laser beam power of 6 kW and welding speed of 1 m/min are used for welding paths of 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 of the circumference. Welding with various speeds is conducted with 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 m/min and a constant energy per unit length of 240 kJ/m. The specimens are evaluated by metallographic microsections and scanning acoustic microscopy. The investigations reveal three major weld defects resulting from a gradient in linear welding speed between the specimen surface and the center and from heat accumulation due to specimen geometry. Porosity and hot cracks form under the surface and the weld root bulges, which also result in hot cracks. The weld depth increases to its final weld depth after approximately 1/8 of the circumference.

Additive manufacturing with multi-material design offers great possibilities for lightweight and function-integrated components. A process chain was developed in which hybrid steel–steel-components with high fatigue strength were produced. For this, a material combination of stainless powder material Rockit® (0.52 wt.% C, 0.9% Si, 14% Cr, 0.4% Mo, 1.8% Ni, 1.2% V, bal. Fe) cladded onto ASTM A572 mild steel by plasma arc powder deposition welding was investigated. Extensive material characterization has shown that defect-free claddings can be produced by carefully adjusting the welding process. With a tailored heat treatment strategy and machining of the semi-finished products, bearing washers for a thrust cylindrical roller bearing were produced. These washers showed a longer fatigue life than previously produced bearing washers with AISI 52100 bearing steel as cladding. It was also remarkable that the service life with the Rockit® cladding material was longer than that of conventional monolithic AISI 52100 washers. This was reached through a favourable microstructure with finely distributed vanadium and chromium carbides in a martensitic matrix as well as the presence of compressive residual stresses, which are largely retained even after testing. The potential for further enhancement of the cladding performance through Tailored Forming was investigated in compression and forging tests and was found to be limited due to low forming capacity of the material.

Locally adapted properties within a machine component offer opportunities to increase the performance of a component by using high strenght materials where they are needed. The economic production of such hybrid components on the other hand represents a major challenge. The new tailored forming process chain, which is developed within the collaborative research center (CRC 1153) represents a possible solution to produce hybrid components. This is made possible by the use of pre-joined hybrid semi-finished products made from two different steel alloys, which are subsequently formed. The semi-finished products can be manufactured for example by means of deposition welding. Due to a thermal mechanical treatment, an overall higher component strength of the joining zone can be achieved. The deposition welding processes can be used to generate a cladding on a base material. During the welding, one of the most difficult tasks is to reduce the amount and size of pores in the joining zone. These pores can reduce the strength in the joining zone of the welded parts. However, additional pores can occur in the intermediate zone between the substrate and the cladding. In the presented study, the influence of the forming process on the closing of pores in the cladding and in the intermediate zone was investigated. Therefore, cylindrical specimen were extracted in longitudinal direction of the welding track by wire-cut eroding. These welding tracks are manufactured by plasma-transferred arc welding of AISI 52100 on a base plate made of AISI 1015. Further, specimens were prepared transversely, so that the base material, the intermediate layer, and the welded material are axially arranged in the specimen. The prepared specimen were checked for pores by means of scanning acoustic microscopy. Subsequently, an uniaxial compression test was carried out with various degrees of deformation and the two specimen designs were examined again for pores. A microstructure analysis was carried out after each step. The investigations show that there is a need for a minimum degree of deformation to reduce pores in the welded material. However, this required plastic strain cannot be achieved in the welded material of the hybrid specimen, which is a result of the homogeneous temperature distribution in the specimen. The homogeneous temperature distribution leads to different flow properties in the specimen, which means that the main plastic deformation is taking place in the base material.

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This study investigates the wear behavior of additively welded cladding layers on less wear‐resistant base materials using plasma‐transferred arc welding and laser hot‐wire cladding. The cladding layers are made from atomized AISI 52100, AISI 5140, and a stainless steel with (0.52 wt% C, 0.9 wt% Si, 14 wt% Cr, 0.4 wt% Mo, 1.8 wt% Ni, 1.2 wt% V, bal. Fe) on unalloyed steel AISI 1022M as the base material. The specimens' microstructure and surface hardness are comparable with conventional specimens of monolithic AISI 52100 and AISI 4140, which is used as a reference. Tribometer tests are carried out in ball‐on‐disk configuration to investigate the wear resistance of the specimen. The multimaterial specimens show comparable wear behavior to their monolithic counterparts, and a good performance of the stainless specimen in pure sliding is proven. These findings suggest that additive manufacturing processes can be used to clad less wear‐resistant base materials and achieve high wear resistance, making it possible to exploit the advantages of surface coatings under severe wear conditions.

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