중탄소계 열간단조품의 미세조직과 구름피로거동

Rolling Contact Fatigue Behavior and Microstructure Control to Medium Carbon Steel Base Hot Forgings

Once hot forgings for automotive parts such as wheel bearing flange to which cyclic asymmetric bending stress is continuously applied are produced, it is necessary to control their microstructure to obtain superior mechanical properties. It is however hard to control the microstructure uniformly because the strength is reduced as coarsening of ferrite grains. To investigate the microstructural alteration according to process variables during hot working, the variation of the ferrite grain size was studied by utilizing of the computer aided servo-hydraulic Gleeble tester which is hot deformation behavior reproduction equipment. In addition, the effect of the ferrite grain size of raw material on the austenite grain behavior of hot forgings was also examined. The rolling contact fatigue resistance of the induction hardened SAE 1055 steel was compared with the occasion of the same condition of SAE52100 bearing steel. As a result, it was confirmed that the ferrite grain sizes of the forgings depend on the heating temperature and cooling start temperature during hot forging and cooling processes. The induction hardened SAE1055 steel showed a superior rolling contact fatigue resistance to the induction hardened SAE52100 steel. The reason is that SAE1055 steel is freer from the material defect such as segregation than the comparative steel.