The Influence of Argon Flow on Inclusion Characteristic and Fatigue Life of Continuous Casting Bearing Steels

Abstract

In this study, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) are used to measure the inclusion size and identify the inclusion type respectively. The evaluated maximum nonmetallic inclusion size of bearing steel has been obtained by using statistics of extreme values (SEV). The influence of argon flow of the continuous casting process on the inclusion characteristics of bearing steels has been estimated, the influence of size and type of inclusion of bearing steel on its fatigue life have been discussed as well. It was found that most inclusions in steels are oxysulfide and alumina cluster. With the decreasing of the argon flow, the inclusion size gets larger and the amount of cluster-type inclusion also increases. In addition, by adopting the criterion of return period (T) at 200, the serial analyses show that the relation between predicted inclusion size for max and the argon flow is inverse proportion, but the fatigue life of steel is proportional to argon flow. A correlation among argon flow, inclusion size and fatigue life of bearing steel has been established in this study.