Hybrid Bearings Non Destructive Evaluation (NDE)

The objective of this proposed effort is to demonstrate the feasibility of Vibrant Corporation (Vibrant) improving current non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods to allow for surface and subsurface feature inspection of hybrid bearings. Under the proposed effort, an NDE capability will be developed and demonstrated that can quickly and cost effectively detect various types of manufacturing defects found in ceramic rolling elements used in hybrid bearings including surface and bulk flaws. The NDE capability will be adapted from the Process Compensated Resonance Testing (PCRT) technology currently used for metal and ceramic parts in the automotive and aerospace industries. PCRT uses Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS) coupled with genetic sorting algorithms and the Mahalanobis-Taguchi statistical method. PCRT is able to determine patterns within the resonant spectra of acceptable and unacceptable parts. These patterns will then be used to generate a sorting tool that can consistently separate parts with any combination of acceptable variations from those with a single occurrence of an unacceptable variation, i.e. critical flaw.