Special steel is a key material required for major equipment manufacturing and national key project construction. It is a high-tech product in iron and steel materials. Its production and application represent a country's industrialization development level. In the future, the research and development direction of China's bearing steel is mainly reflected in four aspects:

1. Economic cleanliness

Under the premise of considering the economy, the cleanliness of the steel is further improved, the oxygen and titanium contents in the steel are reduced; and the mass fractions of oxygen and titanium in the bearing steel are less than 6×10-6 and 15×10-6 respectively; reduce the content and size of inclusions in the steel, and improve the distribution uniformity.

2. Tissue refinement and homogenization

Through the application of alloying design and controlled rolling and controlled cooling process, the uniformity of inclusions and carbides is further improved, the network and band carbides are reduced and eliminated; the average size and maximum particle size are reduced, and the average size of carbides is less than 1μm; further increase the grain size of the matrix structure, so that the grain size of the bearing steel is further refined.

3. Reduce low magnification tissue defects

Further reduce the central porosity, central shrinkage cavity and central component segregation in the bearing steel, and improve the uniformity of the low-magnification structure.

4. High toughness of bearing steel

Through new alloying, hot rolling process optimization and heat treatment process research, the toughness of bearing steel is improved.