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Heat Treatment

 To improve the mechanical properties like tensile strength, impact

strength, ductility etc.,
 To refine the grains.
 To improve Machinability.
 To improve Hardness.
 To produce hard surfaces and soft interiors.
 To relieve internal stresses and residual stress.
 To overcome the effects of strain hardening and restore ductile
properties of cold working.
 To modify Magnetic and Electrical properties.

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Heat Treatment

1. Heating the metal or alloy to a prescribed temperature

2. Holding the specimen at that temperature for pre determined period
of time – holding time or soaking time depends upon the maximum
thickness of the specimen.
3. Cooling at a rate necessary to obtain a specific microstructure for
desired properties.

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Heat Treatment

1. Full Heat Treatment: In this Method, the complete cross section

of the specimen is heat treated.
1. Annealing
a) Full Annealing
b) Partial Annealing

2. Normalizing
3. Hardening
4. Tempering

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Heat Treatment

2. Surface Heat Treatment: Only surface is heat treated.

i. Thermo-chemical treatment
i. Carburizing
a. Pack Carburising
b. Liquid Carburising
c. Gas Carburising
ii. Cyaniding
iii. Nitriding

ii. Surface Hardening

a. Flame Hardening
b. Induction Hardening

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Annealing

 Alloy heated above upper critical

temperature (A3), alloy contains unstable
austenite only.
 If the alloy is heated between upper and
lower critical temperature (A1), alloy obtained
is α+γ or Fe3C+γ.
 If alloy is heated below the lower critical
temperature alloy will not contain any
austenite.
Types
 Full annealing
 Partial annealing
 Sub – critical annealing
 Process annealing
 Stress relief annealing
 Spherodizing annealing

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Annealing - TYPES

 Applied for low and medium carbon steels

(hypoeutectoid ).
 Austenizing the specimen 30 °C to 50 °C above A3.
A3
 Obtained structure is coarse pearlite and proeutectoid
phase, soft and ductile.
 For hypereutectoid steels heating will lead to
coarsening of austinitic grains.
 Subjected to slow cooling will result in the formation
of coarse lamellar pearlite and network of cementite at
grain boundaries.
 Coarse pearlite and cementite network at grain
boundaries has inherent brittleness and poor
mechanical properties.

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Annealing - TYPES

 Incomplete annealing
 The specimen is heated between
(A1 and A cm) for hypereutectoid steel &
(A1 and A 3) for hypo eutectoid steel.
 For hyper-eutectoid steel slight
reduction in brittleness and
improvement in toughness is seen.
 For hypo-eutectoid steels, partial
annealing increases its machinability.

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Normalizing

 Cooling done in a faster rate (Air cooling)

 It is accomplished by heating at approximately 40°C to
50 °C above the upper critical temperature lines
holding it at that temperature for a short time and A3
then cooling it in still air.
 The purpose of normalizing is to refine the grains (i.e.,
to decrease the average grain size) and produce a
more uniform and desirable size distribution.
 Applied to steels that have been plastically deformed by rolling
operation.
 The rolling operation produces grains which are irregularly
shaped and relatively large, but varying in size substantially.
 When such steel components are subjected to normalizing,
grains will be normalized (uniform smaller size and uniformly
distributed). This makes the rolled components tougher.

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Hardening

 Austinized component is first quenched in

quenching media (like salt bath) maintained above
the temperature (> 230 °C).
 Component quenched in the first stage is quickly
transferred to a milder quenching medium (air)
where it is cooled to room temperature.
 Internal stresses produced will be less

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Hardening

 Not a hardening treatment.

 Heating the steel above critical range to make it
austenite.
 Quenched at critical cooling rate into a salt bath held
in bainite range.
 Steel piece remains in bath until austenite is
transformed into bainite.
 Allowed to cool to room temperature.
 Steel possesses better ductility, impact strength,
fatigue strength.

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Tempering

 Usually follows the hardening process.

 Increase the toughness of steel by reducing
hardness and brittleness.
 After hardening, steels become brittle and
sometime unsuitable for in service conditions.

1. Heating steel to a temperature below the critical

range (below 727 °C) i.e. 400 to 550 °C depending
on the type of steel (hypo, hyper or eutectoid
steel).
2. Holding (soaking) at that temperature for certain
duration (if required).
3. Cooling slowly to room temperature.

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Hardenability of steels

 Hardenability is a term that is used to describe the ability of an alloy to be hardened

by the formation of martensite as a result of a given heat treatment.
 A steel alloy that has a high hardenability is one that hardens, or forms martensite,
not only at the surface but to a large degree throughout the entire interior.
 A steel is said to have higher hardenability if austenite is transformed into
martnesite even at relatively slower cooling rates.
 In other words, hardenability of steel is defined as that property which determines
the depth and distribution of hardness induced by quenching steel from austenitic
condition.

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Hardenability of steels

 Jominy test - The test used to evaluate hardenability. An austenitized steel bar is
quenched at one end only, thus producing a range of cooling rates along the bar.

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Hardenability of steels

 After the piece has cooled to room temperature, shallow flats 0.5 mm (0.02 inch)
deep are ground along the specimen length and Rockwell hardness measurements
are made along each flat .
 Hardness readings at every 1.6 mm (1/16 inch.) are taken.
 A hardenability curve is produced when hardness is plotted as a function of
position from the quenched end.

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Surface treatments

 Numerous industrial applications such as gears require a hard wear

resistant surface called the case and relatively soft, tough and shock
resistant inside, called the core.
 No plain carbon steel can possess both these requirements at the same
time; because a low carbon steel containing will be tough but a high
carbon steel of 0.9 % or more carbon will possess adequate hardness
when suitably heat treated.
 Both these requirements may be met by employing a low carbon steel
with suitable core properties and then adding carbon, nitrogen or both to
the surface of steel inorder to provide a hardened case of a definite
depth. These treatments are case hardening.

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Surface treatments

 Selectively heating the surface: Rapidly heat the

surface of a medium-carbon steel above the A3
temperature and then quench the steel.
 After steel is quenched the center is still a soft
mixture of ferrite and pearlite, while the surface is
maternsite.
 Depth of martensite layer is case depth.
 Tempering produces the desired hardness at the
surface.
 We can provide local heating of the surface by
using gas flame, an induction coil.

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Case hardening

 Introducing carbon into low carbon steels to produce a hard case.

 Carburizing increases the carbon content of the steel by process by
absorption and diffusion.
 Low (about 0.2 %) carbon steels is heated to 870 to 925 °C in contact with
gaseous, solid or liquid carbon containing substances for several hours.
 The high carbon steel surface is hardened by quenching.
 Case depth is 1.27 mm, with hardness RC65.
 Gears and bearings.

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Case hardening

 Nitriding accompanies the introduction of nitrogen into the surface of

certain type of steels (ex, containing Al and Cr) by heating it and holding it
at a suitable temperature in contact with ammonia (NH3).
 Attained case depth is 0.381 mm.
 Extreme hardness (Vickers 1100)
 Aircraft engine parts, aero engine cylinders.

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Case hardening

 Low carbon steel is heated between 800 to 870 °C in a molten sodium

cyanide bath for a period between 30 min to 3 hour depending upon
depth of case required.
 Case depth of 0.25 mm attained.
 Hardness about RC65.
 Screws, nuts.

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Induction hardening

 Heating medium carbon steels by means of

a magnetic field to temperature between
750°C to 800°C.
 Followed immediately by quenching.
 Process may be applied for surface
hardening or full annealing.
 Heating time varies between 1 and 5
seconds.
 Hard case and tough core is maintained.
 Depth of hardening can be controlled by
selecting current of appropriate frequency.
 Crankshafts, spur gears.

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