CONTINUOUS ANNEALING FURNACE, ROLLING BEARING, ANNEALING METHOD, AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING INNER AND OUTER RACES OF DEEPLY GROOVE BALL BEARING

摘要

A continuous annealing furnace wherein high carbon bearing steel is subjected to spheroidizing annealing continuously, characterized in that the furnace comprises not less than two processing chambers having mutually different carburizing gas atmospheres and connected together continuously, an intermediate chamber provided between these processing chambers and partitioned off therefrom via openable doors, and transfer means for transferring a material to be processed in the processing chambers and intermediate chamber; and an annealing method characterized in that an annealing process is carried out by using such a continuous annealing furnace. A rolling bearing characterized in that a maximum carburization rate and a carburized depth of a raceway surface of a complete product of the rolling bearing comprising high carbon bearing steel processed in the above-mentioned manner are 0.1-20 % and 0.1-0.5 mm respectively.