Improved fatigue life and power density start with clean steel. TimkenSteel’s Ultrapremium™ certified air-melt technology takes cleanness to a higher standard.
When this process is applied to almost any grade of steel, it dramatically lowers oxide inclusions over competing processes. The result: optimum performance and longer service at a fraction of the cost of re-melted steels.
Oxide inclusions contribute to early failure in engineered components like gears and bearings. By reducing the size and concentration of oxide inclusions in steel, the Ultrapremium process allows:
- A reduction in size and weight at current power levels;
- An increase in power capacity at current size; and
- Improved durability/fatigue life performance.
Measuring Up: Ultrapremium-certified
Traditional steel cleanness measurements don't provide information that directly correlates with application performance. These processes do not measure enough area to accurately provide the statistical detail of whether critically sized inclusions are present in a component. Essentially, traditional methods may understate the likelihood of flaws that can impact fatigue performance.
In comparison, TimkenSteel’s Ultrapremium process improves the cleanness and certifies the results using automated scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) capability. The process creates a cleaner steel and more accurately validates the results via a rapid inspection of a larger area, providing more accurate understanding of the overall inclusion population. In addition to peace of mind, that means more meaningful cleanness metrics relevant to component design, allowing customers to easily determine the probability of critically sized inclusions. Some of these important metrics include:
- Average concentration of oxide inclusions greater than 10 and 20 microns in size;
- Average concentration of oxide stringers greater than 100 and 200 microns in length;
- Maximum likely-sized inclusion.
The quality of our Ultrapremium steels comes to life in customer applications. A customer making sophisticated power generation and transmission systems tested gear sets made from our Ultrapremium steel. Those tests simulated exposure to the harshest service environment conditions, running a predetermined number of hours in extreme conditions. Historically, these tests resulted in failures with competitor materials. With Ultrapremium steel, all 10 gear sets passed with no failures or signs of fatigue.
When performance counts, TimkenSteel Ultrapremium technology delivers improved fatigue life and power density.
