Residual Stress and Wear Studies of Deep Cryogenically Treated SAE 52100 Bearing Steel

The effect of cryogenic treatment on the enhancement of tensile residual stress resistance in the SAE 52100 bearing steel was studied using X-Ray diffraction technique. The tensile residual stress behaviour is assessed by X-Ray diffractometer as per the ASTM standard E2860-12. Refinement of carbide particle by deep cryogenic treatment (DCT) is often proposed as the improvement for the residual stress in the bearing steel. X-Ray diffractometer technique include the identification and quantitative analysis of crystalline chemical compounds (phase analysis and quantification, e.g. retained austenite determination), residual macro- and micro-stress analysis. It was found that the tensile residual stress was increased by +30Mpa due to deep cryogenic treatment when compared with that of conventional heat treatment (CHT).  Moreover, the hardness of the DCT samples shows an improvement of 15% over the CHT samples.