YES, CRYOGENIC TREATMENTS CAN SAVE YOU MONEY! HERE'S WHY -—— Dr. Rendall F. Barron Department of Mechanical Engineering Louisiana Tech Uni Abstract In recent years, we have sean on increase in the use of cryogenic metal treatment fo improve the weor resistance of cutting tools, gears, etc», in the Container Industry. Little werk, however, had been done in documenting why this treat tment produced such remarkable results, ond mony sceptics disputed the validity and warth of such teaiment. The author hs completed on extensive ressarch program on exactly what cryogenic treatment does Yo fool steel, end this poper presents documented evidence of how ord why processes such os the Perm-O-Bond dry eryogentc treatment increase wear resistance in tools used in the Container Industry. Introduction There have been mony "spin-offs" from our space rogram, and many have involved the realm of super-cold or enics. One such practical application of sub-zero temp= erature Involved the quenching of metals in liquefied gases to Improve the properties of the materials. Metols were quenched from temporatures on the order of 1600°F to 1800°F (870°C to id nitrogen (~820°F or = 196°C) in a cryo= avenching recess used by Grumman Aircraft Coron to avoid warping of thin components, such as gaskets. 423 A slower cool-down rate actually resulted with cryogenic quenching, compared with brine quenching, becouse the port wos blanketed by 0 film of poorly-cond whereas, the part came in direct contoct w cate of a brine quench. During the 1950's tests were made to determine the ammount of retained austenite in carbon sees ofter cooling to cryogenic temperatures.* It was found that large amounts of austenite were transformed to the harder, tougher martensite structure when the part wos cooled dow to liquid nitrogen femperatures. Since the oustenite-martensite tronsformation is Irreversible (unless the material is heated bock to high temp= ‘rotures), this observation suggested that eryogenic treatment could be used to make metal parts last longer in wear situations, because more of the cryogenicelly-treated steel would be in the morteraite form thon would be the cate for normally heat= treated steels, During the 1960's © few companies begon developing practical procedures for treating such metal ports as cutting tools, gears, slitter knives, etc., to improve the wear resist= cance of these ports. One company--Materials Improvement, Ince, near Detroit=-has developed a process, called Perm-O- Bonding, which brings out the best properties of tool steels. Tt ‘war Fou thatthe grectett improvement in weor resistance could be achieved when the part was cooled very slowly, socked at « temperature on the order of ~310°F or lower for many hours, ond then warmed up to room temperature slowly. The temperature-time diagram for @ typical Perm-O-Bondin proces is illsroted tn Figure In addition he 35 Perm-O-Bond process involved cooling the parts in a completely dry environment-~no liquid nitrogen was used. This dry process avoided the problems of thermal shock that some people hod experienced in cryogente fectiment By quenching in liquid nitrogen. The use of dry cooling olso allowed precise cconirol of the temperature of the part being cooled. 400°F TEMPER 300° ¥ * 200° W100 w 100 | s 2 o g ‘COOL-DOWN & 100 2 -t 2 -200° jARM-UP. = sor SOAK ~00°! 0 10 20 80 40 50 60 70 60 TIME, HOURS Figure 1. mmperature~Time Diagram for Perm-O-Bond Process Examples of Lifetime Improvements Many companies have uted eryogenic treatment to improve metal port lifetimes, and several examples reported in the literoture®r®:7 ore listed in Toble 1. Corrugoting plants in many areas of the country have noted marked increases in wear life of slitters,slottert, cut-off blades, tope-cutters, and other cutting tools after the tools ‘were treated in the Perm-O-Bond Process. For example, the average sarvice life of untreated sitters is 6 to 8 weak the coverage service life of Perm-O-Bonded sitters exceeds 6 months. At the new Owens-Illinois plant at Cleveland, Tonnesiee, every slitter blade inthe plant wos Perm-O-Bonded, cand these blades ran for well over a year without needing shorpening. Machine down-time to change worn-out gears can be quite costly, because the machine may be out of service for many hours. Several plants, such as Union Camp (Monroe, Michigon), Consolidated Packaging (Flint, Michigon), and Packing Corp. of America (Anderton, Indiana), have found that Perm-O-Bonded gears run many months longer than Untreated gears. Ceyogenie treatment of high-speed tol steel sed inTeble 1. Lifetime improvement ofter cryogenic treatmant ——— er average Lie Ue em Compeny| before ofter Ratio rectment | reotment 2einch end mills used to A 65 parts 200 parts cu C1065 stool Hack~saw blades used to cut A hous 6 hours: 1.50 ‘boss on M107 shell ‘Zone punches used on shell 5820 shells 82.5 ening L Nosing toad dies sed on | A | 225shells | 487shells | 2.12 (M485 shells Copper resistance weld B | weeks Sweels | 3.00 B 40,000 hits 250,000 hits 6.25 Blanking of heat treated 1000 pieces 2000 pieces 2.00 4140 and 1095 steel Brooch vied on @ C1020 | tet0 pare | 2602 pars | 4.75 Beal torque tube yoke Brooching operation on | 1500 pare | 2600pers | 5.73 forged connecting rode L Gang milling T-nuts from E Sas tabos | 4.67 C1018 steel with Me2 cutters AMT-38 cut-off blodes F 60 hours 928 hours 15.4 Company: Louisiane Army Ammunition Plant, S. K. Wellman Div. Abex Corp, Detrott Area Manufacturing Di [athe tools® hos been shown to increase the time between regrinding of the tools by @ factor of from 2 to 5. The Sperry Rand Corporation at the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant in finden, La., used this process to increase the life of the tools used in their Metol Parts Division. Some Partial Concepts About Cryogenic Treatment The cryogente treatment process is a relatively new technology, 30 little has been written about it. Few people ‘ore familier with the process and the reasons that It improves ‘wear life s0 dramatically, In foct, some partially true concepts have been advanced ebout cryogenic treatment during the past years, Some of these ideas were based on tests conducted ot soak temperatures on the order of ~60°F to -120°F, at which the full benefits of cryogenic tectment ore not realized, Other Sperry Rand Corp., Minden, La. Hawthorne Metals, Detroit, Michigan Bedford, Ohio 1 Chrysler Corp., Detroit, Michigan DeVlieg Machine Co. , Detroit, Mi Boise Cascade Composite Can Div., Hazelwood, Missouri ichigon fests involved plunging the parts into liquid nitrogen and cllowing the part to 200k for a few minutes before being wormed to room temperature. This type of treatment resulted in high thermal stresses (which ore not encountered during slow cool-dowr), s0 the cryogenTe Freatment was considered ‘mtisfactory. Finally, some of the ideas were based on an textropolation into the cryogente temperature range of data obtained at ambient temperoture and higher. ‘One publication? purported to "clear up misconceptions* bout cryogenic treatment; however, the report was somewhat biased against the use of low-temperature treatment. For ‘example, the statement wat mode thot "Properly heat treated tool steels ordinarily do not require refrigeration because they nocmally will contaln little Hf ony retoined custenite.” The atoment that properly heat treated tool steels contain little 4retained custenite is correct; however, it hat been found! thot the austenite=mortensite transformation is not the only smechaniam involved in improving the wear life of high-alloy steals, such os tool steels. A time-dependent mechanism it alto Involved, because long soak time (greater than 8 hours) is needed to improve weor life effectively in cryogenic treat ment. Thus, awell-heat-treated tool will perform well in weer situations; however, « eryegenically treated tool will generally perform better, Ithos been said thot cryogenic treatment does not affect the org size of tho treated material. Experimental tests by ‘Mazur! have shown that the grain size was actually reduced somewhat (4%6 to 6%) by eryogenic treatment, On the other hand, the atomic lattice porameters were uncffected by the low-temperature soak, This means that permanent dimensional changes during cryogenic treatment of a properly steel cre negligible, and improved dimensional st. ‘echieved by cryogenic treatment. In ferrous alloys and most nonferrous alloys, bulk marten site transformation takes place at a speed equal to appraxi= mately one-third of the speed of sound in the moterial (8500 ft/sec. o 1680 m/s transformation speed for steel) !2, s0 the transformation may be considered to be essentially instantaneous oto partculer temperature. Surface martensite fermation hor been observed for the Fe-Ni and Fe-Cr-Ni alloys, Surface martensite crystals formed at cryogenic temperatures have been cbierved fo grow ot speeds several orders of mognitude slower than martensite plates formed within bulk specimens. WS the statement that it is not necenery to refrigerate gradually to ~320°F is only partially true, because the improvement in weer life is « time-dependent process at cryogenic temperatures. This ison example of a conclusion formed by erroneauly ‘extrapolating data from room temperature down into the sub~ zer0 range. Actvally, a rapid ceal-down will improve the port life somewhat; however, a slow cool=down will result in a reoter improvement. Results of Research on Cryogenic Treatment in order to determine the factors responsible for the in ‘tease in wear resistance caused by cryogente treatment, an ‘extensive research program was conducted in the Mechanical Engineering Department ot Louisiana Tech University. In this test program, five tool stee! olloys (52100, D-2, M-2, A-2, ‘ond 0-1) were subjected to various eryogenic treatments, More than 150 samples were socked at various temperatures, From ~200%F to =310°F, for times ranging from 480 minutes to 1200 minutes. Some samples were not tempered after eryogente treatment, some were tempered once, and some were tempered twice, Woar rests Accelerated wear tests wore conducted on o wear ‘pporatus similar to the Tabor Model 503 Abrasive Testing Instroment (Teledyne Tabor Co., North Tonowanda, N.¥.), ‘except the specimen was in the form of o rectongulor ber, 0.394 in, x 0.394 in. x 2.25 in (10 mmm x 10 ram x 57 mm), with the end pressed against « coarse-grit abrasive wheel 5 ine (127 eam) in diameter. A sketch of the apparatus is thown in. Figure 2. ‘The results of the wear tests indicated that the cryogenic treatment improved the wear resistance by factors ranging from 1.2 to 11 times, depending pon the number of tempering a7 21 inches (533 mm) SAMPLE HOLOER 4 5-in. DIA. LATHE Tool WEIGHTS HOLDER GRINDING 8 WHEEL Figure 2 cycles, the soak temperature, and the soak time. For example, the wear resistance ratio for 52100 teol steel could be correlated by: Ry treted) Tareas “HD FAT) FD () where: F)(N) = 2.393 - 0,550 N (Eq. 2) Foy) = 0.247 (s30°%/T) "7 ea, 3) Fat) = 1.0614 expf6.73 1,(104] (Eq. 4) In this equation, N= number of tempering cyeles (0, 1, or 2) T= sock temperature, *R (150°R to 260%R) L = soc time, minutes (480 min, to 1200 min.) The weer resistance is defined by: Mn an where: F = normal force on the sample, N = surfoce sliding velocity, mm/s W=weor rate, mn¥/s (Eq. 5) H, = Vickers hardness, MN/m2 Similar correlations were devel tested, loped for the four other alloys The results of the wear fests indicated thal the greatest increose in wear resistance was achieved when the material was cooled slowly (on the order of 0.5°F per minute) to 0 tempera ture below ~300°F (-184°C), ond soaked at this temperature For 6