Abstract:  Aiming at the problem of abnormal noise caused by the raceway indentation caused by the lateral impact of the wheel hub bearing unit in road use, the optimization of the raceway induction quenching process for the outer ring of the wheel hub bearing was studied. Firstly, the shape of the outer ring raceway hardened layer was optimizedby adjusting the width and spacing of the induction coil, and the power supply voltage and heating time were adjusted to obtain a suitable hardened layer depth. Based on this method, four process schemes were designed. Then, different process schemes were simulated and analyzed by the finite element analysis method, and the simulation results of the temperature field of the outer ring and the depth and shape of the hardened layer were obtained. Further, the simulation results were verified by process experiments, and the actual process improvement effect of the outer ring was obtained. At the same time, the error analysis of the finite element analysis results and the experimental results was carried out.Finally, the impact test of the road shoulder was used to further verify the improvement effect of the process optimization on the impact resistance of the wheel hub bearing. The research results show that after the process improvement, the depth of the hardened layer at the contact angle of the inner raceway of the outer ring increases by 0.3mm, and the outer raceway increases by 0.5mm, and the shape of the double raceway hardened layer is adjusted to a coherent shape. The error of simulation results and process test results is less than 10%. The impact resistance of the inner raceway of the outer ring of the hub bearing is increased by 43.0% on average, and the outer raceway is increased by 21.8% on average.
Key words:  hub bearing impact resistance; hardened layer depth; hardened layer shape; bearing outer ring temperature field; impact test of road shoulder; material properties; process experiment