52100 Bearing Steel
52100 Bearing Steel
52100 steel is a deep hardening alloy used for aircraft bearings or other high stressed parts where good rolling contact fatigue strength is required at temps below 400 degrees. The 52100 vac melt steel material offers superior cleanliness and internal soundness over the conventional air melted SAE 52100.
52100 is a through hardening bearing steels intended for rolling contact and other high fatigue applications. In the hardened condition the high hardness, high strength and high cleanliness provides the steel with the right properties to withstand high cycle, high stress fatigue. 52100 is mainly used for small and medium sized bearing components. It is also regularly used for other machine components that require high tensile strength and high hardness.
52100 Round Bars bearing steel is one kind of special steel with features of high wear resistance and rolling fatigue strength. High-carbon chromium bearing steel, engineering steel and some types of stainless steel and heat resistant steel are used as materials of bearings and for other purposes.
Advantages of Chrome Bearing Steel 52100:
Superior hardness, 60-67 on Rockwell hardness scale (Rc) at room temperature
High carbon chrome alloy steel
Operates continually at temperatures up to 120°C
Used to produce precision ball bearings and roller bearings
Cost-effective
Long working life
Applications of 52100 Bearing Steel
Alloy steel 52100 grade bearing steel is mainly used for the manufacture of aircraft bearings and other highly stressed parts. This steel grade 52100 steel is preferably vacuum arc re-melted to give optimum performance. Typical applications: Bearing Manufacture, CV joints, ball screws, gauges, knife etc.
Comparable Standards:
| AISI/SAE | DIN | JIS | GB |
| 52100 | 100Cr6 | SUJ2 | GCr15 |
52100 Chemical Composition
| C | Si | Mn | P | S | Cr | Ni | Cu |
| 0.95-1.05 | 0.15-0.35 | 0.25-0.45 | ≤0.025 | ≤0.025 | 1.4-1.6 | ≤0.25 | ≤0.25 |
Mechanical Properties of ASTM A295 52100 Bearing Steel
| Properties | Metric | Imperial |
| Bulk modulus (typical for steel) | 140 GPa | 20300 ksi |
| Shear modulus (typical for steel) | 80 GPa | 11600 ksi |
| Elastic modulus | 190-210 GPa | 27557-30458 ksi |
| Poisson’s ratio | 0.27-0.30 | 0.27-0.30 |
| Hardness, Brinell | – | – |
| Hardness, Knoop (converted from Rockwell C hardness) | 875 | 875 |
| Hardness, Rockwell C (quenched in oil from 150°C tempered) | 62 | 62 |
| Hardness, Rockwell C (quenched in water from 150°C tempered) | 64 | 64 |
| Hardness, Rockwell C (quenched in oil) | 64 | 64 |
| Hardness, Rockwell C (quenched in water) | 66 | 66 |
| Hardness, Vickers (converted from Rockwell C hardness) | 848 | 848 |
| Machinability (spheroidized annealed and cold drawn. Based on 100 machinability for AISI 1212 steel) | 40 | 40 |
52100 Heat Treatment
AISI 52100 alloy bearing steel is heated at 816°C followed by quenching in oil. Before performing this process, it is subjected to normalizing heat treatment at 872°C followed by slowly cooling in order to reduce the machining stress.
AISI 52100 bearing steels alloy can be hot worked at 205 to 538°C.
AISI 52100 bearing steel can be cold worked using conventional techniques in the annealed or normalized conditions.
AISI 52100 alloy bearing steel could be hardened by quenching in water from 801-829 degree or quench in oil from 816-842 degree.
Temper to desired hardness as indicated by tempering curves after water or oil quench.
