Abstract: An oil-tempered wire that has high fatigue strength and toughness after the nitriding treatment, and a method of producing the same, and a spring using the oil-tempered wire are provided. The oil-tempered wire has a tempered martensite structure. A lattice constant of a nitride layer formed on a surface of the wire is 2.870 ? to 2.890 ? when the oil-tempered wire is nitrided. The oil-tempered wire is produced by wire drawing a steel wire and quenching and tempering the wire drawn steel wire. The quenching is performed after the radiation heating is performed at 850 to 950° C. for over 30 sec to 150 sec, and the tempering is performed at 400 to 600° C.

Abstract: The present invention provides a spring steel wire which has a tempered martensitic structure brought about by quenching-tempering. The present spring steel wire has a 40% or higher reduction of area and a 1,000 MPa or higher shear yield stress after subjected to heat treatment for at least hours at a temperature ranging from 420° C. to 480° C. The present steel wire preferably constitutes, based on mass %, C: 0.50-0.75%, Si: 1.80-2.70%, Mn: 0.1-0.7%, Cr: 0.70-1.50%, Co: 0.02-1.00%, and remnants consisting of Fe and impurities, or constitutes, based on mass %, C: 0.50-0.75%, Si: 1.80-2.70%, Mn: over 0.7-1.50%, Cr: 0.70-1.50%, and remnants consisting of Fe and impurities.

Abstract: There is provided a stainless steel wire having both excellent corrosion resistance and an excellent fatigue strength while being fabricable with high productivity. A stainless steel wire consists of 0.01 to 0.25 mass % C, 0.01 to 0.25 mass % N, 0.4 to 4.0 mass % Mn, 16 to 25 mass % Cr, 8.0 to 14.0% Ni and the balance Fe with impurities, wherein the C+N content satisfies 0.15 mass % ?C+N ?0.35 mass %. The stainless steel wire contains 15 vol. % martensite phase induced by a drawing and the balance austenite phase and has a texture which causes the austenite phase to exhibit diffraction intensities satisfying both I(200)/I(111)?2.0 and I(220)/I(111)?3.0 by X-ray diffraction in the longitudinal direction of the steel wire.