Bearing steel under severe loading condition undergoes substantial subsurface microstructural alterations known as Dark etching regions and white bands. White bands (WEBs) develop after hundreds of millions stress cycles in bearing components have been reported for several decades but the formation mechanism is not fully elucidated. Current research presents a systematic rolling contact fatigue...

Subsurface micro-structural changes such as dark etching region (DER) and white bands (WEB) which develop in bearing steels due to cyclic stresses rolling contacts, have been studied for decades a number of theoretical models proposed explain their formation mechanisms predict initiation. In WEB investigations, studies generally focused only on one subtype WEB, e.g. low angle (LAB) or high (HAB...