Steel 4340 Property Results Chemistry Data : [top] Carbon Chromium Iron Manganese Molybdenum Nickel Phosphorus Silicon

Sulphur Principal Design Features 0.38 - 0.43 0.7 - 0.9 Balance 0.6 - 0.8 0.2 - 0.3 1.65 - 2 0.035 max 0.15 - 0.3 0.04 max AISI 4340 is a heat treatable, low alloy steel containing nickel,chromium and molybdenum. It is known for its toughness and capability of developing high strength in the heat treated condition while retaining good fatigue strength. Typical applications are for structural use, such as aircraft landing gear, power transmission gears and shafts and other structural parts.

Applications

Machinability

Forming

Welding

Heat Treatment

Forging Hot Working

Cold Working

Annealing

Aging Tempering

Machining is best done with this alloy in the annealed or normalized and tempered condition. It can be machined by all conventional methods. However in the high strength conditions of 200 ksi or greater the machinability is only from 25% to 10% that of the alloy in the annealed condition. 4340 has good ductility in the annealed condition and most forming operations are carried out in that condition. It can be bent or formed by spinning or pressing in the annealed state. Bend radii should be 3t or greater. The alloy can be fusion or resistance welded. Preheat and post heat weld procedures should be followed when welding this alloy by established methods. Heat treatment for strengthening is done at 1525 F followed by an oil quench. For high strength (over 200 ksi) the alloy should first be normalized at 1650 F prior to heat treatment. See "Tempering" for strength levels. Forging may be done in the range of 2250 F max. down to 1800 F. 4340 has very good cold forming capability so that hot working should not be needed. Hot working in any but the annealed condition can affect the strength level. Consult the alloy supplier in regard to hot working. The 4340 alloy may be cold worked, in the annealed condition, by conventional methods and tooling. It has good ductility. A full anneal may be done at 1550 F followed by controlled (furnace) cooling at a rate not faster than 50 F per hour down to 600 F. From 600 F it may be air cooled. Not applicable to this alloy. The temperature for tempering depends upon the strength level desired. Before tempering the alloy should be in the heat treated or normalized & heat treated condition - see

Hardening Other Comments

"Heat Treatment". For strength levels in the 260 - 280 ksi range temper at 450 F. For strength in the 125 - 200 ksi range temper at 950 F. Do NOT temper the alloy if it is in the 220 260 ksi strength range as tempering can result in degradation of impact resistance for this level of strength. The alloy will harden by cold working or by heat treatment -see "Heat Treatment" and "Tempering". AISI 4340 is considered to be a "through hardening" steel such that large section sizes can still be heat treated to high strength.

Physical Data : [top] Density (lb / cu. in.) Specific Gravity Specific Heat (Btu/lb/Deg F - [32-212 Deg F]) Melting Point (Deg F) Thermal Conductivity Mean Coeff Thermal Expansion Modulus of Elasticity Tension Forum Result: What happens to the physical size of 4340 during heat treating? I have some shafts to machine from 4340 51/2" dia stock, to an average size of 5.000" dia x 18" long. Will the material grow or shrink and by how much? It will be quenched and tempered to 40-44 RC. I can tell you from first hand experience the material is going to go crazy on you. I have always heat treat to full hard then draw three times to desired RC. If you can watch the three draws you'll notice the first draw will take it to the desired RC, The second draw at same temp it will go up in RC. The third draw will make it go back down and really really stabilize it for you. leave your self some machine stock. If you have any dowel holes be prepared to chase the holes with a carbide reamer. Be careful if you have to chase a taped thread. Preface... I'm not a heat treater but deal with our heat treater often so can probably head you in the right direction. First off... simple enough to ask your heat treater. They won't mind flexing their know-how for you. I have had lengthy conversations with one particular heat treater we use and he's a wealth of information and just an all around good guy. We're buds and more than once he's extended our tooling life by better understanding what we were doing with a tool. Maybe varying our hardness or suggesting a different grade of material etc... That said... They'll shrink some. They'll also be prone to bending if not positioned correct or supported by something flat during heat treat. You need to ask your heat treater if he can stand them up on end without having them fall etc. Longer shafts it's nice if you can drill & tap shaft end and supply hooks in each shaft on one end so they can be lifted for quench. These are short enough they shouldn't be a problem. They'll fit in a basket but they'll stay straighter if they can stay standing up on end. Far as how much they're going to shrink? Ask your heat treater. It won't be much. Maybe .002-.004 if I had to guess. The bending potential CAN be more of the issue. But... if I were making these things... and spoke with the heat treater about keeping them upright I'd still allow for approx. .03-.04 total (.015-.02 per side) to be machined after heat treat for clean-up. That cut might drop your hardness by a point... if that. If your heat treater whines about giving them special care... find another heat treater. When you say average size of 5.000 I expect there are steps in this part. Best to keep generous radii at all transitions prior to heat treat also. This is to reduce likelihood of cracking during quench. External corners need to at least be broken before heat treat, as they too are a stress concentration area. 0.28 7.8 0.116 2600 21 6.6 33

You can look up... Jominy test 4340... on the www or ask your heat treater what the depth of hardness might end up at. A part that thick will still be soft in the center. I'd expect that the heat affected zone will only be about 1/2" deep with hardness tapering off closer to center you get. That's usually not a bad thing in the applications I've seen this material used. Tough center with wear resistant surface. Keep this in mind when rough machining. If steps on these shafts are deep you will lose hardness at the smaller diameters. Also always a good practice to call out a double temper on things like this. This will help ensure a complete transition of the grain. This is more critical in different grades and depends some on the application, but just a good habit to get into. Costs you an extra 50 bucks or whatever but can make or break a tool. Especially in more critical tooling applications. Tooling built for any sort of shock loads... like Hot work tool steels or S grades etc. are much tougher or less susceptible to cracking if a double or triple temper is performed. Need that smooth transition of grain and nice even equally sized grain. Another tid bit. We've used vacuum heat treat on 4140-4340 in the past and although we had a little less distortion... the gas quench couldn't strip the heat out of the material quickly enough to get the hardness up at the initial quench like good old oil can. Meaning I doubt you'll achieve 44 RC surface on 5 inch diameter in a vacuum furnace. Might be wrong though? Could look into that if these aren't critical and you don't want to do a finish cut. Thanks for the info. Yes there are steps in the shafts but not much difference in diameter. The diameters are critical so finishing after heat treating will be necessary, I was going to leave .06 to make sure straightness wont be a problem. They do have the means (high tonage press) to straighten them if necessary. There are 3/4-10 holes in each end so lifting by hooks will be provided. Thanks again for the info so I feel I would be safe with my original plan. 40 RC wont be that hard to cut for some finishing and to correct the length. Quenching and tempering steel will actually grow the part. After heat treating, the part is hardest just under the surface. Plus, the very surface can have decarb and grain boundary oxide, both of which are undesireable. Since you'll be grinding the shaft to finish dimensions, material growth and undesireable surface effects will be removed and you'll be left with hard and healthy material at the susrface (assuming the part doesn't suffer grinding burn during final machining).

STEEL 1. Processes (Heat treatment): a. Quenching b. Annealing, Cryogenic Treatment, Thermomechanical processing Focus on heat treat procedure for: Ultrahigh strength materials, maraging steels, powder metallurgy ferrous alloys 2. Hardening of steel: a. Flame hardening b. Conventional treatment like Carburizing, nitriding and carbonitriding c. High energy processes using laser beams/ electron beams. Surface modification Techniques a. Ion implantation b. PVD/CVD coatings c. Surface melting/ surface alloying processes Linear changes are approximately one-third the volume changes. During the formation of austenite from an original microstructure of ferrite and pearlite or tempered martensite, the volume (and hence the length) decreases with the formation of the dense austenite

3.

1. 2.

phase (see Fig. 3). From the elongation curves, the start and finish times for austenite formation, usually defined as 1% and 99% transformation, respectively, can be derived. These times are then conveniently plotted on a temperature-log time diagram (Fig. 4). Also plotted in this diagram are the Ac1 and Ac3 temperatures. Below Ac1 no austenite can form, and between Ac1 and Ac3 the end product is a mixture of ferrite and austenite. Notice that a considerable overheating is required to complete the transformation in a short time. The original microstructure also plays a great role. A finely distributed structure like tempered martensite is more rapidly transformed to austenite than, for instance, a ferriticpearlitic structure. This is particularly true for alloyed steels with carbideforming alloying elements such as chromium and molybdenum. It is important that the heating rate to the hold temperature be very high if a true isothermal diagram is to be obtained. The transformation start curve shows as an upper-limiting estimate of the time (in seconds) for nucleation, . The isovolume fraction curves x can semiempirically be described by a relation of the type (Ref 12): /8 exp( / ) . ( ) x 2N . Q RT f I X T t= D (Eq 1) where x is the volume fraction of the transformed phase, Q is an activation energy related to the boundary diffusion activation energies for the alloying elements, N is the ASTM grain size number for austenite, T is the temperature (in degrees Kelvin), T is the undercooling (A3 - T) for ferrite, (A1 - T) for pearlite and an empirical value for bainite, f is a linear function of the volume fractions of carbon and alloying elements and I is the volume fraction integral giving the dependence of the transformed phase on the volume fraction. The combined effect of the I/T3 factor, which increases with decreasing undercooling (that is, increasing temperature) and the exp (Q/RT) factor, which increases with decreasing temperature, results in long nucleation times, x, for high and low temperatures and short nucleation times for intermediate temperatures. The C-shape can thus be obtained and understood. The factor 2N/8 is included to take into consideration the fact that the transformation rate is larger for smaller austenite grain sizes.