The influence of prior warm rolling on fracture toughness of heat treated AISI 52100 steel

Abstract

An investigation was conducted to determine the effects of prior warm rolling on AISI 52100 bearing steel in the hardened condition. Microstructural and mechanical properties of both standard and warm rolled 52100 were investigated. Heat treatments, consisting of both conventional hardening treatments and isothermal transformation treatments, were conducted prior to fracture toughness, hardness, and tensile testing. Conventional hardening treatments resulted in mar­tensitic structures with low toughness; prior warm rolling resulted in the rolled materials exhibiting both higher hard­ness and toughness than the standard 52100 in the hardened condition. Isothermal transformation treatments resulted in substantially improved toughness, especially in the material processed at 300 C.