Ho Keun Moon

Jae Seong Lee

R&D Center,
Shaeffler Korea Corp.,
Changwon, Korea, 641-020

Sun Joon Yoo

POSCO Technical R&D Center,
Pohang, Korea, 790-704

Man Soo Joun1

School of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering,
GyeongSang National University,
Jinju, Korea, 660-701
e-mail: msjoun@nongae.gsnu.ac.kr

June Key Lee

School of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering,
GyeongSang National University,
Jinju, Korea, 660-701;
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
The Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH 43210

Hot Deformation Behavior

of Bearing Steels
The material behaviors of two types of bearing steels at hot working conditions are
investigated. Stress-strain curves at various temperatures (9001300C) and strain rates
(150/s) are obtained by compression tests with a computer controlled servo-hydraulic
Gleeble 3800 testing machine. Elongation and reduction of the area are also obtained by
tensile tests with the Gleeble 1500 testing machine. Flow stresses are calculated from the
experiments and are used to predict the temperature distribution and the metal flow of a
workpiece during a multistage hot forging process of a bearing race. A rigidthermoviscoplastic finite element method is applied. The experimental and numerical
results are summarized to reveal the reasons for internal crack formation.
DOI: 10.1115/1.2744392
Keywords: hot forging process, bearing steel, stress-strain curve, hot compression test,
hot tensile test, computer controlled servo hydraulic testing machine, rigidthermoviscoplastic finite element method

Introduction

Various hot forging techniques are used to mass produce bearings to obtain proper shapes with good mechanical properties.
Internal and/or surface cracks may develop 1 during a hot forging process due to a mismatch of the local deformation, when the
process is not well designed and/or not well controlled, causing a
massive and critical production failure. It is generally viewed that
the temperature control is a critical issue 2.
Recently, prime bearing consumers demand not only product
quality certificates but also technical and design reports including
the material behaviors under the forging condition. Material behaviors for the bearing steels at an elevated temperature must be
understood and available for an optimal design of hot forging
processes. It is necessary to characterize the material behavior of
bearing steels at an elevated temperature, as affected by the
variation/distribution of temperature, strain, and strain rate.
Numerical and experimental investigations to predict optimal
hot forging process conditions have been active in recent years
27, which entail material testing at elevated temperature in an
attempt to correlate the effects of workpiece temperature and
strain rate 2. Various attempts have been made to obtain the flow
stress information for common commercial steels 35. Microstructural investigations and related applications to hot metal
working have been carried out by many researchers 6,7. However, the material information of bearing steels under the hot
working condition can hardly be found from the literature, even
1
Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Materials Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF
ENGINEERING MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY. Manuscript received September 24, 2003;
final manuscript received April 9, 2007. Review conducted by Huseyin Sehitoglu.

though research efforts on the bearing making have been active

for a long time.
In this investigation, hot compression tests are performed at
various temperatures and speeds to obtain the flow stress information for two types of bearing steels: a high carbon chromium steel
STB2 and a surface hardened steel SCr420H. Hot tensile tests
are also conducted to observe the elongation and cross-sectional
area change. Results from the experiments are employed in a
rigid- thermoviscoplastic formulation 8 to numerically examine
reasons for internal crack formation during a hot forging process.
All numerical simulations are done by employing a commercial
forging simulator AFDEX 8,9. A schematic description of a hot
forging process is shown in Fig. 1.

Experiments

High carbon chromium steel STB2 and a surface hardened

steel SCr420H are widely used to mass produce a wide range of
bearing races, hence selected as target materials. Chemical compositions of two bearing steels are given in Table 1.
Small bearing races are usually mass produced by multistage
automatic hot forging machines. Hot forging of bearing races are
composed of: heating, cutting, forming, piercing, separating, and
cooling. The initial temperature of the material is usually maintained between 1150C and 1200C. The mean temperature rise
rate is 1314C/s. The mean forming speed ram speed is
500 mm/ s and the strain rate ranges up to 50/s.
2.1 Hot Compression Test. Hot compression tests are conducted in a Gleeble 3800 testing machine. The diameter and the
height of each specimen are 10 mm and 12 mm, respectively. A
very thin nickel plate is used on solid lubricant MoS2 in order to
prevent the adhesion of the specimen on the die and to minimize
the friction. A thermostat is attached to the middle of the specimen

Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology

Copyright 2007 by ASME

JULY 2007, Vol. 129 / 349

Downloaded From: http://materialstechnology.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

Fig. 2 Hot compression tests of STB2 75% upset at a constant rate of 10/s

Fig. 1 Schematic description of a hot forging process and its

analysis model

to measure and control the temperature. The general procedure

and setup of the experiments can be seen from the related literature 4. The test is performed for a wide range of temperatures
T = 900 1300 C and strain rates 150/s. The specimen is
heated at the rate of 13.8C/s. The test conditions are summarized
in Table 2. Strain rates in the loading direction and punch displacement 75% upset are controlled for all the compression
tests.
Figure 2 shows pictures of STB2 specimens after 75% upset at
a constant temperature between 1100C and 1250C when the
strain rate is 10/s. Visible radial surface cracks can be observed
along the outer edge when T = 1200 C and 1250C. Similar
cracks are observed when the strain rate is increased to 50/s for
both temperatures of the STB2 specimens. However, when the
strain rate is lowered to 1/s, no visible cracks appeared for the
STB2 specimens at T = 1200 C and 1250C. When the strain rate
is increased again to 5/s, cracks appeared for the STB2 specimens
at 1250C, but not for 1200C. At T = 1300 C, all the strain rates
caused visible cracks for the STB2 specimens. However, no visible cracks appeared for all the SCr420H specimens. The results
of the crack occurrence test are summarized in Table 2. In the
table, marks and imply no visible crack occurrence and
visible crack occurrence in the STB2 specimens, respectively. It
should be noted again that no visible cracks appeared for all the
SCr420H specimens tested.

Table 1 Chemical composition of two bearing steels wt%

Classification
STB2
SCr420H

Si

Mn

Cr

Ni

Mo

0.951.1
0.170.23

0.150.35
0.150.35

0.5
0.550.9

0.025
0.03

0.025
0.03

1.31.6
0.851.25

0.025

0.08

Table 2 Combination of temperatures and strain rates sampled for the compression test
Temperature C
Strain rate
/s

900

1000

1100

1150

1200

1250

1300

1
5
10
50

350 / Vol. 129, JULY 2007

Transactions of the ASME

Downloaded From: http://materialstechnology.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

Fig. 3 True stress-strain curves at strain rate 10/s STB2

Fig. 5 True stress-strain curves at 1150C STB2

Figures 3 and 4 show the stress-strain curves obtained from the

compression tests at a strain rate of 10/s at different temperatures.
The curves are quite different from those obtained at room temperature. The flow stress decreases as the temperature increases.
Figures 5 and 6 show the variation of flow stress with strain rate at

a constant temperature of 1150C for STB2 and 1250C for

SCr420H, respectively, which show increase in the flow stress as
the strain rates increases. A slight decrease is also shown in the
flow stress after a peak value and then no further decrease as the
strain accumulates to a certain point, possibly due to

Fig. 4 True stress-strain curves at strain rate 10/s SCr420H

Fig. 6 True stress-strain curves at 1250C SCr420H

Table 3 Strain rate strength coefficient C and strain rate sensitivity exponent m STB2
Temperature C
900

1000

1150

Equivalent plastic
strain

0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7

182.20
190.20
176.60
168.50

0.151
0.151
0.154
0.145

142.00
151.60
138.80
126.00

0.124
0.126
0.123
0.130

89.05
88.40
78.20
69.01

0.123
0.136
0.149
0.178

Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology

JULY 2007, Vol. 129 / 351

Downloaded From: http://materialstechnology.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

Table 4 Strain rate strength coefficient C and strain rate sensitivity exponent m SCr420H
Temperature C
900

1100

1250

Equivalent plastic
strain

0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7

169.50
194.20
184.00
177.00

0.096
0.099
0.110
0.110

101.70
113.70
101.40
92.79

0.120
0.124
0.142
0.158

65.84
68.87
60.02
56.63

0.125
0.142
0.167
0.170

recrystallization.
With 28 sets of representative data 4 rates 7 temperatures
for each material, various forms of curve fittings can be done.
Within the framework of rigid-viscoplastic formulation, the
equivalent flow stress is assumed to be a direct function of the
equivalent plastic strain rate , via
= C m

where the strength coefficient C MPa and the rate sensitivity

exponent m may depend on the equivalent plastic strain and
temperature. Curve fit results are tabularized in Tables 3 and 4 for
the two materials at different strains and temperatures. The measured data are compared with the curve fit data in Figs. 7 and 8, at
= 0.3, T = 1150 C for STB2, and T = 1250 C for SCr420H, respectively.
2.2 Hot Tensile Test. The hot tensile test is useful to investigate the elongation and area reduction, albeit limited in other applications because of localized necking. The Gleeble 1500 testing
machine is used for hot tensile tests. The diameter and length of
the specimen are 10 mm and 110 mm, respectively. Testing conditions are summarized in Table 5. Each specimen is pulled to
fracture, measuring the force and necked diameter as the displacement is increased at a fixed rate.
Figures 9 and 10 show the specimens elongated to fracture at
the strain rate 10/s and for T = 900 1250 C. The total elongation
ductility of STB2 bearing steel increases slightly as the temperature increases from 900C to 11001150C and decreases after a
critical temperature, as indicated in terms of the area reduction
ratio in Fig. 11. The reduction ratio decreases drastically at T

= 1200 C. A similar trend is observed when the strain rate is

increased to 50/s Fig. 11. At a lower strain rate, the drop in
reduction ratio is not as significant.
For SCr420H bearing steel, the reduction ratio continues to
increase as the temperature increases, reaching a peak at around
T = 1200 1250 C at all strain rates tested Fig. 12. It is not clear
from Fig. 11, but from Fig. 12 it is seen that as the strain rate
increases, the reduction ratio decreases. A smaller reduction ratio
implies less ductility, which explains the surface cracks during the
hot compression tests at higher strain rates.

3 Formation of Internal Cracks in Hot Forging of a

Bearing Race
The rigid-thermoviscoplastic finite element method 8 is employed to predict flow behaviors and temperature distributions in
hot forging of a bearing race. In this method, we assumed that the
material is incompressible, isotropic, and rigid-thermoviscoplatic

Fig. 8 Flow stress-strain rate curve at 1250C = 0.3,

SCr420H
Table 5 Combination of temperatures and strain rates
sampled for the tensile test
Temperature C

Fig. 7 Flow stress-strain rate curve at 1150C = 0.3, STB2

352 / Vol. 129, JULY 2007

Strain rate
/s

900

1000

1100

1150

1200

1250

1
5
10
50

Transactions of the ASME

Downloaded From: http://materialstechnology.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

Fig. 9 STB2 specimens after pulled to fracture

and obeys the Hubervon Mises yield criterion. Thus, its flow
stress is assumed to be a function of stress, strain rate, and temperature.
The bearing race selected is manufactured by an automatic hot
forging machine. Figure 1 shows the hot forging process for the
bearing race, which is composed of three consecutive hot forging
processes. The final material in the process is pierced into three
pieces and then the outer two materials are used for inner and
outer bearing races after additional machining and ring rolling
processes and surface treatments.

Fig. 12 Variation of reductions of area with temperature and

strain rate SCr420H

The flow stress information given in Table 3 for the bearing

race material STB2 is employed to be interpolated or extrapolated
for the flow stress of a material point in forging simulation. The
punch speed is given in Fig. 13. The convective heat transfer
coefficients are assumed to be 2.95 W / m2 C between the environment and the material, die, or punch, and 30.0 kW/ m2 C between the material and the die or punch. The other process conditions and parameters are determined with help of the literature
1013 and experiences as follows:

Fig. 10 SCr420H specimens after pulled to fracture

Fig. 11 Variation of reductions of area with temperature and

strain rate STB2

Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology

initial temperature of material: 1150C;

initial temperature of die and punch: 150C; and
coefficient of Coulomb friction: 0.3.

The analysis was carried out by a commercial forging simulator

AFDEX 8,9, which is based on the theory of rigidthermoviscoplastic finite element method. Figure 14 shows a set
of finite element mesh systems and Fig. 15 shows the temperature
distributions at the end of the forging simulation. The free surface

Fig. 13 Forming velocity profile

JULY 2007, Vol. 129 / 353

Downloaded From: http://materialstechnology.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

Fig. 14 A set of mesh systems during simulation

Fig. 16 Effective strain rate distribution of the material STB2

is cooled down by 10C due to natural cooling and the contact

area is cooled down more by 680C. However, the hottest spot
temperature is raised to 1230C from the initial temperature of
1150C due to deformation heating.
Figure 16 shows the strain rate distribution shortly before the
completion of the process, which reveals that a very high rate
zone is built between two corners, as high as 90/s, while most of
the area maintains a relatively low rate 15/s or lower. The high
strain rate and nonuniformity would cause a definitive deformation band, which causes severe metal distortion as can be seen in
Fig. 17. A comparison reveals that the deformation band high
gradient zone in Fig. 17 is nearly coincident with the hightemperature region in Fig. 15. Based on the results from the ex-

periments, it is undesirable for a high strain rate region to be too

close to a high-temperature region in terms of fracture during hot
forging. The finite element analysis and experimental results indicate the reason for internal cracks in Fig. 18.
As can be seen in Table 1, STB2 is a typical high-carbon highchromium steel and the weight of carbon of STB2 is considerably
high compared with that of SCr420H. Generally the liquidus temperature of a steel decreases as its composition, that is the relative
weight of alloying elements including carbon, increases. It is also
known that the liquidus temperatures of STB2 and SCr420H are
in the ranges of 12001250C and 13001350C, respectively.
Thus, a rapid increase in brittleness, called red brittleness, occurs
because the austenite grain boundary is first activated and then the
interstitial elements including S are diffused into the boundary

Fig. 15 Temperature distribution of the material STB2

Fig. 17 Metal flow lines

354 / Vol. 129, JULY 2007

Transactions of the ASME

Downloaded From: http://materialstechnology.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use

Fig. 18 Internal crack of the material STB2

together with local melting due to the increase in temperature near

the liquidus temperature. The above phenomena lead to the intergranular fracture as can be seen in Fig. 19.

Fig. 19 SEM micrograph of intergranular fracture of the STB2

material deformed at 1250C. Grains are covered with hightemperature oxide film.

Conclusion

Results from hot compression tests and hot tensile tests were
presented for two bearing steels, STB2 and SCr420H, in an attempt to characterize the material behaviors under hot metal
working conditions. The experimental results show that the elongation of STB2 decreases drastically when the temperature
reaches about 1200C. The material information including flow
stress curves and hot behaviors were employed to reveal the reason for internal cracks founded in the hot forged mechanical part.
The hot forging process for the part was analyzed by the rigidthermoviscoplastic finite element method. It is recommended to
move the highest strain rate region away from the hottest spot as
far as one can to avoid a possible crack formation.

6
7

8
9

Acknowledgment

10

This work was supported by Grant No. RTI04-01-03 from the

Regional Technology Innovation Program of MOCIE in Korea.

11

References
1 Moon, H. K., Chung, J. H., Yoo, S. J., and Joun, M. S., 2001, Analysis of
Internal or External Crack of Bearing Steel During Hot Forging Process,
Proceedings of the KSTP 6th Forging Symposium, Busan, June 1, pp. 920.
2 Altan, T., and Boulger, F. W., 1973, Flow Stress of Metals and Its Application
in Metal Forming Analyses, ASME J. Eng. Ind., 95, pp. 10091019.
3 Rao, K. P., and Hawbolt, E. B., 1992, Development of Constitutive Relation-

Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology

12
13

ships Using Compression Testing of a Medium Carbon Steel, ASME J. Eng.

Mater. Technol., 114, pp. 116123.
Rao, K. P., Prasad, Y. K. D. V., and Hawbolt, E. B., 1996, Hot Deformation
Studies on a Low-Carbon Steel: Part 1Flow Curves and the Constitutive
Relationship, J. Mater. Process. Technol., 56, pp. 897907.
Rao, K. P., Prasad, Y. K. D. V., and Hawbolt, E. B., 1996, Hot Deformation
Studies on a Low-Carbon Steel: Part 2An Algorithm for the Flow Stress
Determination Under Varying Process Conditions, J. Mater. Process. Technol., 56, pp. 908917.
Xia, X., Sakaris, P., and McQueen, H. J., 1994, Hot Deformation, Dynamic
Recovery and Recrystallization Behavior of Aluminum 6061-SiCp Composites, Mater. Sci. Technol., 10, pp. 487496.
Ko, B. C., Kim, J. H., and Yoo, Y. C., 1998, The Effects of Temperature and
Strain Rate on Flow Stress and Strain of Al5083 Alloy during High Temperature Deformation, Transactions of Materials Processing in Korean, 72, pp.
168176.
Joun, M. S., Moon, H. K., and Shivpuri, R., 1998, Automatic Simulation of a
Sequence of HotFormer Forging Processes by a Rigid Thermo-viscoplastic
Finite Element Method, J. Eng. Mater. Technol., 120, pp. 291296.
Joun, M. S., and Lee, M. C., 1997, Quadrilateral Finite-Element Generation
and Mesh Quality Control for Metal Forming Simulation, Int. J. Numer.
Methods Eng., 40, pp. 40594075.
Rebelo, N., and Kobayashi, S., 1980 A Coupled Analysis of Viscoplastic
Deformation and Heat Transfer-II. Applications, Int. J. Mech. Sci., 22, pp.
707718.
Kobayashi, S., Oh, S. I., and Altan, T., 1989, Metal Forming and the Finite
Element Method, Oxford University Press, New York.
Cho, J. R., Park, C. Y., and Yang, D. Y., 1992, Investigation of the Cogging
Processes by Three-Dimensional Thermo-Viscoplastic Finite Element Analysis, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., Part B, 206, pp. 277286.
Joun, M. S., Hwang, S. M., and Moon, H. K., 1995, Automatic Computer
Simulation of Multi-Stage Hot Forging Processes-Flow Analysis, Temperature
Analysis and Die Stress Analysis, Proceedings of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers, Pohang, 2122 March, 1995 Spring Annual Meeting in
Korean I, pp. 337340.

JULY 2007, Vol. 129 / 355

Downloaded From: http://materialstechnology.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 12/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use