Heat Treatment

Type of heat treatment Normalizing Objective To change an irregular and coarse grain structure into a uniform one with fine lamellar ferrite-perlite structure. After diffusion annealing, after welding, after casting. If the steel is embrittled due to aging To increase the thoughness or yield strength To reduce the internal stresses without essential influence to other properties. After welding, after casting To make the grains coarser so that the smearing effect and cutting forces are small resulting in easier machineability. For milling, turning To convert the lamellar cementite into globular cementite and hence to obtain a suitable structure for further operations. For milling, cold deformation To compensate the local differences of the chemical composition To restore the original material properties after cold deformation for further cold deformation. To increase the strength and wear resistance. To obtaion the ideal combination of strength and toughness To incease the hardness of the surface by means of dip hardening, flame hardening and induction hardening. ncraesing the surface hardness by diffusing carbon into the surface. ncraesing the surface hardness by diffusing nitrogen into the surface. Hardening of the surface by aplying the cementation and nitriding at the same time.

Stress relief annealing Coarse graing annealing Soft annealing Diffusion annealing Recrystallization Hardening Quenching and tempering Surface layer hardening Cementation Nitrogen hardening Carbonitriding

diffusion annealing

coarse grain annealing

Temperature (C)

normalizing hardening quenching and tempering

soft annealing

stress relief annealing recrystallisation annealing

C content (%)

temperature

normalizing

hardening A3 A1 air cooling

quenching

time

diffusion annealing upto 50 h

temperature

coarse grain annealing 1-2 h A3 A1 air cooling

air cooling

time