Front Matter

Bearing steel technology is a seemingly all-encompassing term to describe the metallurgical know-how on steels and processes for the production and usage of rolling bearing steels. In the pursuit of efficiency, the rolling bearing industry has standardized the steels and testing methods and reduced the costs of the metallurgical processes. As time elapses, the knowledge of why and how the standards were prepared fades into the past, i.e. it is forgotten. Much has been published in the open literature on the subject for specialists (fellow steel technologists) and the first ASTM International Symposium on Bearing Steel, sponsored by ASTM Committee A01 and its Subcommittee A01.28, was held in Boston in 1974. Since then, bearing steel symposia have been held at regular intervals and the program for the ASTM Eighth International Symposium on Bearing Steel, in Vancouver on May 21–22, 2009, contained papers on the subject of bearing steel technologies. In particular, the subject of micro cleanliness assessment methods in bearing steels was revisited 35 years after the 1974 Boston symposium on the subject.