Inhomogeneity and residual stress are two important factors controlling the strength and the fracture in fatigue of induction hardened steels. All the test specimens being used are generally round bars because of a practical use, but they contain many factors which complicate experimental and analytical investigations of the mechanical behavior of these specimens.
Therefore, the induction hardened sheets were made in order to obtain basic data for evaluating the strength of those laminated inhomogeneous metals. In this report, as the first step, the inhomogeneity and the residual stress in these sheet specimens were discussed quantlitatively based on the distribution of temperature in the induction-heated and the water-cooled specimens.