Influence of the Material State of Ground, Case-Hardened Steels on the Barkhausen Noise Depending on the Surface Integrity*

Abstract The manufacturing process of grinding generally leads to a thermo-mechanical influence on the surface integrity. In addition to the intended development of residual compressive stresses due to the finishing process, disturbances in the grinding process can lead to negative effects such as tensile residual stresses, tempering and even rehardening zones and significantly reduce the component lifetime. In industrial applications, the analysis of Barkhausen noise is becoming increasingly important for the detection of this unwanted thermo-mechanically influenced surface integrity. The non-destructive method reacts sensitively to changes in, for example, the residual stress state as well as the hardness. In addition, other material-, process- and metrology-related influences are described in literature. The investigations presented in this paper deal with the influence of different material states (case-hardening depth, surface carbon content and alloy composition) on the signals of the Barkhausen noise as a function of the surface integrity. It is shown that the signal level is significantly influenced by the material condition and thus individual limit values must be used for evaluation of the surface integrity. ◼