Developments in the production of engineering steels — the advantages for gear manufacturers from secondary steelmaking

Abstract Major advances in the production of engineering steels have taken place in the last 10/15 years through the introduction of secondary steelmaking. This has enabled steels with improved and consistent properties to be developed in terms of: improved cleanness giving better fatigue performance; control of composition enabling better hardenability control and giving greater scope to the use of alternative grades; improved machining performance, reducing machining costs. This paper includes a section on remelted steels, that offer further improvements in cleanness levels. In addition to describing the secondary and remelted steelmaking processes, the quantified effect of these developments and how they can be of benefit to the gear producer is reviewed in detail.