Brinelling is a material surface failure caused by contact stress that exceeds the material limit. This failure is caused by just one application of a load great enough to exceed the material limit. The result is a permanent dent or "brinell" mark. It is a common cause of roller bearing failures, and loss of preload in bolted joints when a hardened washer is not used. Engineers can use the Brinell hardness of materials in their calculations to avoid this mode of failure. A rolling element bearing's static load rating is defined to avoid this failure type.
A similar-looking kind of damage is called false brinelling. This occurs when contacting bodies vibrate against each other in the presence of very small loads, which pushes lubricant out of the contact surface area, and the bearing assembly can not move far enough to redistribute the displaced lubricant. The result is a finely polished surface that resembles a brinell mark, but has not permanently deformed either contacting surface.