焼結Ni合金鋼歯車におけるメゾヘテロ組織及び転造の歯元曲げ疲労特性に及ぼす影響

This study aims at reducing costs of high load gear manufacturing, and substituting P/M gears for conventional wrought steel gears. In order to improve the fatigue strength of P/M gears, we focused on the rolling and the high performance sintered and heat treated 4600 series alloy steels with mezzo-heterogeneous microstructure which were made from the mixed elemental powders. The fatigue strength was determined by single tooth root bending fatigue test machine, and the effect of mezzo-heterogeneous microstructure and rolling on the fatigue strength was mainly investigated. The endurance limit at <I>N</I>=3.0×10<SUP>6</SUP> of the 500 <I>μ</I>m rolled 6 % Ni alloy steel gear compact showed 950 MPa which value is about 2/3 of the case hardened wrought steel (SCM415) gears. However, the endurance limit of rolled and heat treated gear compact showed lower value (630 MPa) as compared to as-rolled gear compact. This seems to be due to the decreasing the compressive residual stress by heat treatment and unfavorable mezzo-heterogeneous microstructures.