Simulation of Quenching Treatments on Bearing Components

Bearing components with an improved product performance are a challenging task. While the components should decrease in size, higher loads should be applied while simultaneously the life cycle time should be increased. To fulfil these reguirements, the desired product properties are mainly set during the heat treatment, specifically during the quenching process, so further development of these processes is considered relevant for future generation products. To minimize the amount of testing, computer simulations of the effects from heat treatments on the resulting properties are increasingly used as a development tool. This paper describes the attempt to simulate the quenching of a cylindrical ring made of SAE 52100 bearing steel guenched in salt, followed by an isothermal transformation, in order to understand and predict the hardening process with respect to phase transformations and residual stress generation.