Ausforming, the plastic deformation of heat treatment steels in their metastable, austentic condition, was shown several decades ago to lead to quenched and tempered steels that were harder, tougher and more durable under fatigue-type loading than conventionally heat-treated steels. To circumvent the large forces required to ausform entire components such as gears, cams and bearings, the ausforming process imparts added mechanical strength and durability only to those contact surfaces that are critically loaded. The ausrolling process, as utilized for finishing the loaded surfaces of machine elements, imparts high quality surface texture and geometry control. The near-net-shape geometry and surface topography of the machine elements must be controlled to be compatible with the network dimensional finish and the rolling die design requirements (Ref. 1).

Letters to the editor on a variety of subjects, including couplings, gear planers and ausforming.

Almost all machines or mechanical systems contain precision contact elements such as bearings, cams, rears, shafts, splines and rollers. These components have two important common requirements: first, they must possess sufficient mechanical properties, such as, high hardness, fatigue strength and wear resistance to maximize their performance and life; second, they must be finished to close dimensional tolerances to minimize noise, vibration and fatigue loading.