Heat treatment

ANNEALING PROCESSES
annealing refers to a heat treatment
in which a material is exposed to an
elevated temperature for an
extended time period and then
slowly cooled.

Purpose
relieve stresses;
increase softness, ductility,and
toughness; and/or
produce a specific microstructure

three stages
heating to the desired temperature,
holding or soaking at that
temperature, and
cooling, usually to room
temperature.

 Process Annealing
soften and increase the ductility of a previously strainhardened metal. (Recovery and recrystallization)
Stress Relief
(1)plastic deformation processes such as machining and
grinding;
(2) nonuniform cooling of a piece that was processed or
fabricated at an elevated temperature, such as a weld or a
casting; and
(3) a phase transformation that is induced upon cooling
wherein parent and product phases have different densities
(heated-long -cooled)

Heat-treating temperature ranges for plain

carbon
steels

Normalizing
An annealing heat treatment called
normalizing is used to refine the
grains (i.e., to decrease the average
grain size) and produce a more uniform
and desirable size distribution; finegrained pearlitic steels are tougher than
coarse-grained ones.
Normalizing is accomplished by heating at
least 55 above the upper critical
temperature

Austenitizing
After sufficient time has been allowed for the alloy to
completely transform to austenite.
Full Anneal:
often utilized in low- and mediumcarbon steels that
will be machined or will experience extensive plastic
deformation during a forming operation.
The alloy is then furnace cooled; that is, the heattreating furnace is turned off and both furnace and
steel cool to room temperature at the same rate,
which takes several hours.(coarse pearlite- soft and
ductile)

Spheroidizing
MCS and HCS coarse pearlite-hard to machine.
Heating the alloy at a temperature just below the
eutectoid [line A1, 700C]
If the precursor microstructure contains pearlite,
spheroidizing times will ordinarily range between 15
and 25 h.
Heating to a temperature just above the eutectoid
temperature, and then either cooling very slowly in the
furnace, or holding at a temperature just below the
eutectoid temperature.
Heating and cooling alternately within about+/-50C of
the line

PRECIPITATION
HARDENING
strength and hardness of some metal
alloys may be enhanced by the
formation of extremely small uniformly
dispersed particles of a second phase
within the original phase matrix
Age hardening is also used to
designate this procedure because the
strength develops
with time, or as the alloy ages.

phase diagram for a

precipitation-hardenable
alloy of composition Co

aluminumcopper, copperberyllium,
coppertin, and magnesium
aluminum; some ferrous alloys are
also precipitation hardenable
Overaging
reduction in strength and hardness
that occurs after long time periods is
known as overaging.

Tempering
Tempering is a process of heat treating,
which is used to increase the toughness
of iron-based alloys. It is also a technique
used to increase the toughness of glass.
tempering is usually performed after
hardening, to reduce some of the excess
hardness, and is done by heating the
metal to a much lower temperature than
was used for hardening.

Case hardening
Flame and induction hardening
Carburizing-0.1 and 0.3 wt% C
Nitriding-heats the steel part to 482
621C
Cyaniding-fast and efficient; it is
mainly used on low carbon steels871-954C-NaCN
Carbonitriding-a gaseous
atmosphere of ammonia and
hydrocarbons is used