15Cr14Co12Mo5Ni2, as a new type of low-carbon high-alloy aviation gear steel, has shown significant application potential in the transmission systems of aero engines due to its excellent high-temperature performance. In this paper, the aviation gear steel 15Cr14Co12Mo5Ni2 was treated by a carburizing and quenching process. The microstructure distributions of the carburized and quenched aviation gear steel at different austenitization temperatures (1020 °C, 1050 °C and 1080 °C) were analyzed by OM, SEM and EBSD. Subsequently, the axial tension–compressive fatigue tests (stress ratio R = −1) were carried out using a high-frequency fatigue testing machine after heat treatment at different austenitization temperatures, and the stress–number of cycles (S-N) curves were obtained by fitting the number of fatigue fracture cycles. The fracture morphologies were observed by SEM and the fracture mechanisms were analyzed. The research results show that the distribution of the microstructure and carbides exhibits gradient characteristics, and the carbide content decreases and the effective carburized layer depth decreases from 0.65 mm to 0.45 mm with increasing austenitization temperature, and the main carbide types are M23C6 and M7C3. The fatigue life of 15Cr14Co12Mo5Ni2 gear steel decreases as the austenitization temperature increases. Within the selected temperature range of 1020 °C, 1050 °C, and 1080 °C in this study, the fitted fatigue strengths at a given fatigue life of 106 cycles are 192 MPa, 183 MPa, and 158 MPa, respectively. No obvious crack initiation site can be directly observed from the fracture morphologies of all specimens. Based on the characteristics of crack propagation, it is inferred that the crack source is located in the core or near-core region, and the cracks propagate outward from the core and the propagation rate accelerates with the increasing austenitization temperature, eventually fracturing in the carburized layer. The fracture mechanism of 15Cr14Co12Mo5Ni2 gear steel at the austenitization temperatures of 1020 °C was a mixed mode of intergranular and cleavage brittle fracture, while at 1050 °C and 1080 °C, it was mainly brittle fracture accompanied by local ductile fracture.
Feng et al. (Wed,) studied this question.