Erwin Zaretsky, William Anderson, and Richard Parker win Invention Award

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center researchers Erwin Zaretsky, William Anderson, and Richard Parker received awards from the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board for developing a method to improve the life and reliability of contact bearings. The three men were members of the Fluid System Components Division. Zaretsky, left, was head of the Bearing Materials and Fatigue Section; Anderson, center, was chief of the Bearings Branch; and Parker is a research engineer in the Bearings Branch. In 1965 the researchers published an equation relating rolling-element fatigue life to compressive residual stresses. The researchers developed a method for increasing the life of the rolling contact bearings by up to 500 percent. The optimal performance occurred when the bearing was 1.5 points harder than the tracks they rolled in. The researchers continued their efforts to apply the hardness differential concept to other bearing applications.