Crankshafts require BÖHLER steels with exceptional fatigue strength, toughness, and cleanliness. Key quality features include full traceability, controlled heat treatment, advanced surface hardening, and rigorous testing for reliable automotive and racing performance.
Crankshafts in automotive and high-performance racing applications are among the most highly stressed engine components, converting reciprocating piston motion into rotational power under extreme cyclic loading conditions. They are exposed to high torsional forces, bending stresses, vibration, and fluctuating temperatures, requiring materials with exceptional fatigue strength, toughness, and dimensional stability. In racing engines, where higher rotational speeds and power densities are common, additional requirements include superior cleanliness, optimized microstructure, and maximum resistance to crack initiation and propagation.
BÖHLER high-performance steels and alloys are specifically engineered to meet these demanding requirements. Advanced quenched and tempered steels, micro-alloyed grades, and premium forging steels provide an optimized combination of strength, toughness, and fatigue resistance. Produced using advanced melting and refining technologies, BÖHLER materials offer exceptional cleanliness, low inclusion content, and homogeneous microstructures, significantly enhancing endurance under dynamic loading. Key quality features include strict control of chemical composition, certified traceability, and precisely controlled heat treatment processes to achieve consistent mechanical properties throughout the component. Additional processes such as induction hardening and surface strengthening further improve wear and fatigue performance. Comprehensive testing, including fatigue analysis, ultrasonic inspection, mechanical verification, and metallurgical evaluation, ensures reliable operation. BÖHLER materials enable durable, high-performance crankshaft solutions for both production vehicles and the most demanding racing applications.
BÖHLER K600 corresponds to the material 1.2767 (45NiCrMo16). With its high nickel content, this material offers a very good combination of through hardenability and toughness. This results in a high resistance to impact and shock loads. BÖHLER K600 is used for a wide range of tools where high toughness is required. The material is used for forming and bending tools, cold shear blades for thick materials and for reinforcement rings. Due to its good polishability, BÖHLER K600 is also used for embossing tools, plastic molds and mold inserts for injection molding.
Read MoreBÖHLER V132 is a premium aircraft-quality, low-alloy Ni-Cr-Mo steel in the form of bars, forgings and forging stock requiring high tensile and toughness values, particular in large cross sections in the hardened and tempered condition. These products have been used typically for parts requiring a through-hardening capability up to 3.5 inches (89 mm) in nominal thickness at time of heat treatment but usage is not limited to such applications. E.g. highly stressed components and parts for the aircraft industry, Tracks, helicopter shafts, bolts and screws.
Read MoreBÖHLER V180 VMR is a high-quality, low-alloy Ni-Cr-Mo-V steel with a high silicon and vanadium content, available in bars and forgings for components with a nominal cross-sectional thickness of up to 3.5 inches (89 mm) that require the highest strength and toughness values, especially for large cross-sections in the quenched and tempered condition. This steel is typically used for parts that require a through-hardening steel with a minimum hardness of 53 HRC and can be used to produce finished parts that must meet the most stringent testing standards. Due to the higher Si and V content of BÖHLER V180 VMR, this high-strength steel offers improved mechanical and fatigue properties compared to the standard 300M grade and is used for mechanically highly stressed parts with high fatigue loads, such as torsion bars, gears, and transmission shafts, primarily in racing and automotive engineering, but also in mechanical engineering. The dual vacuum melting process, using vacuum induction melting (VIM) and subsequent vacuum arc remelting (VAR), ensures a high degree of purity and homogeneity and also enhances the fatigue properties of the manufactured parts.
Read MoreBÖHLER V358 in the British Standard Aerospace Series is a 3% Cr-Mo-V nitriding steel offering a tensile strength of 1,320-1,470 MPa, combined with excellent hardenability for high core strength and develops a hard wear resistant case after surface treatment. The alloy is produced by vacuum arc remelting. (VAR) Typical applications are gear shafts and crankshafts with maximum diameter of 70mm for the aircraft industry and automtovie components.
Read MoreBÖHLER V361 is a 3% Cr-Mo-V nitriding low-alloy steel of premium aircraft-quality, low-alloy steel offering a tensile strength of up to over 1350MPa in the form of bars, forgings, and forging stock. Due to the optimized production route via VIM-melting and VAR-remelting, the steel offers high impact strength and fatigue limit. It may be nitrided in the heat treated condition to obtain a wear resistant surface. It is used typically for nitrided parts such as bearings, operating under heavy loads and high speeds at moderate temperatures, and requiring highest surface hardness, high core toughness, and less distortion than parts made from case hardening steel, but usage is not limited to such applications.
Read MoreBÖHLER W460 VMR is a double vacuum arc remelted (VAR) material that has been specially adapted for use in the motorsport sector. The steel purity achieved by this special manufacturing technology, combined with the high strength, ensures that a very high fatigue strength can be guaranteed. The high purity also results in very good polishability, which makes the steel a good choice as a tool material for minting coins.
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