New White Etch Cracking resistant martensitic stainless steel for bearing applications by high temperature solution nitriding

White Etch Cracking (WEC) is a severe and unpredictable failure mode that has been frequently observed in, among others, bearings for wind energy applications. In this work a novel, patented, WEC resistant bearing steel solution is developed through high temperature solution nitriding, followed by a custom heat treatment. Conventional medium carbon, 13 wt% Cr martensitic stainless steels were subjected to the novel process to obtain a nitrogen-rich case. A series of soft annealing, austenitization, cryogenic and tempering treatments converted the nitrogen-rich region into a fine-grained case containing nano-sized precipitates. Test bearings and tribometer specimens were treated with the same sequence of treatments. These specimens were tested under two different accelerated WEC failure promoting conditions. In contrast to standard through-hardened bearing steel the nitrided specimens showed no WEC formation, not even after prolonged testing. •A high temperature nitriding process was developed for bearing steel.•An ultrafine microstructure was obtained in stainless steel after nitriding.•Laboratory tests indicated the nitrided steel was immune to white etch cracking.•This replicates the performance of expensive high-nitrogen steels.