Influence of tempering on contact fatigue
by Johan Fahlkrans; Arne Melander; Krister Johansson; Sven Haglund; Seyed B. Hosseini
International Journal of Microstructure and Materials Properties (IJMMP), Vol. 6, No. 6, 2011

Abstract: Most components are tempered after heat treatment operations such as case hardening or induction hardening. The common opinion is that the martensitic structure after heat treatment is too brittle and tempering is necessary to increase toughness. Tempering is an additional operation which leads to increased costs by energy, handling, and investments. Eliminating tempering from the heat treatment process leads to increased productivity, energy savings, and lowered environmental impact. Two carburised steels, Ovako 253A (?EN 22NiCrMo12-5F mod. A) and EN 20NiCrMo2 (SAE 8620, SS2506), were tested for contact fatigue resistance in a roller to roller rig. The tested samples were characterised with respect to amount of fatigue damage, residual stress, amount of retained austenite and hardness. The objective was to determine if tempering is always necessary after a heat treatment operation. The contact fatigue tests show that tempering results in lower contact fatigue resistance. Further, fatigue cracks were found to have initiated in different ways between tempered and untempered steel.

Online publication date: Mon, 19-Dec-2011

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Microstructure and Materials Properties (IJMMP):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com