Abstract: By using the Gleeble 1500 thermal simulator, the effects of various cooling rates on the microstructure of bearing steel after rolling at 850°C as finishing temperature has been investigated. Combined with large cross-section bearing steel rolling, the ANSYS finite element software was used to model the temperature field at varies cooling rates. It was found that the cooling rate plays an important role in carbide precipitation and the cooling rate after rolling is preferable to be about 3 °C/s to suppress the reticulated carbide precipitation. It also showed that for the large cross-section bearing steel, the bigger the temperature difference between the core and surface of the bar (up to about 450°C), the more difficult the cooling process of core. However, it's possible to control the cooling rate up to 3°C/s so as to suppress efficiently the reticulated carbide precipitation for the round bars (<60 mm) by way of matching properly the cooling intensity and cooling rate.