Accelerated Carbide Spheroidisation of Chromium Bearing Steel by Induction Heating

nevitable part of bearing steel processing is soft annealing. Hot formed semi-products usually have unfavorable structure for machining. The lamellar pearlite in semi-products is transformed to globular pearlite by soft annealing. This long-lasting process is usually in practice carried out by annealing in furnace for tens of hours. Furnace processing effectiveness is very often raised by increasing amount of batch mass for one annealing. The time needed for soft annealing is then significantly extended by period necessary for homogeneous heating and slow cooling of the heat. Presented paper shows different way of carbide spheroidisation and steel softening using induction heating of 100CrMnSi6-4 bearing steel. The new process of soft annealing by induction heating is achievable in minutes. This method is appropriate especially for small semi-products and for continuous processes.