Grain refinement in bearing steels using a double-quenching heat-treatment process

A double-quenching (D/Q) process is proposed for heat-treating high carbon-chromium bearing steels to improve the fatigue properties through refinement of the microstructure. The new heat treatment method has two steps: The first step is a nitrocarburizing process that results in high surface hardness and lowers the transformation temperature. The second step is the same as in the conventional quenching process but can be conducted at a considerably lower temperature than in conventional quenching. The microstructure in the material that is caused by the D/Q heat treatment is much finer than in the conventional Q/T (quenching and tempering) process. In order to quantify the performance of the proposed heat-treatment process, various mechanical property tests are carried out. The rolling contact fatigue life of double-quenched bearing steels was eight times higher than in bearing steels that were treated by conventional Q/T.