Heat Treatments
Heat Treatments
Heat Treatments
Heat Treatment
In the process of forming steel into shape and
Heating
Holding or soaking
Cooling
Annealing
(Stress-relief)
Full Annealing
heats the steel to a temperature within the austenite
Resulting microstructure:
For low-medium carbon steels coarse pearlite and
ferrite
It is easily machined
machining
Performed by heating to just below A3,1 line,
holding there (about 20h.or more) and then slowly
cooling
Normalizing
Allows steels to cool more
rapidly, in air
Produced structure fine
pearlite
Faster cooling provides
higher strength than at
full annealing
Stress-relief Annealing
Heats the steel to just below the eutectoid
Stress-relief:
Is held at fairly low temperature
Is held for a fairly short time
So that recrystallization does not occur
Recovery (Stress-relief)
If you only add a small amount of thermal energy
TS and elongation
Recrystallization
Add more heat and wait some more time, and new
Tr 0.4Tm ,
Grain Growth
If you keep the metal hot too long, or heat it up
200
400
600
Temperature, deg.C
Quenching media
Involves the principles of heat transfer
See procedures in ASM Metals Handbook
There are 9 possible choices (air, furnace, tap water,
3 stages of quenching
Vapor blanket
Vapor transport cooling
Liquid cooling
What is important?
Improved cooling rate (dT/dt) to beat the nose of the
S-curve
Agitate the quenchant reduce the time spend at the
vapor blanket stage
Chose the best fit of quenching media
Consider S/V ratio
Tempering (drawing)
Heating and holding steel below A1 line and slow
Martempering (Martquenching)
Martempering permits the transformation of
Special Tempering
Problem of retained austenite
That gives us untempered martensite
2 or 3 cycle tempering is a solution
That gives us total of tempered martensite
Different tempered martensites will have different
hardness
Austempering
The austemper process offers benefits over the more
How to austemper?
Quench the part from the proper austentizing
Austempering
Advantages of Austempering:
Less Distortion
Greater Ductility
Parts are plater friendly due to the clean surface
Limitations of Austempering:
Austempering can be applied to parts where the