Heat Treatment of

Metals
Lecture 4

Introduction
z Metals and alloys:
z may not posses all the desired properties in the finished product.
z Alloying and heat treatment are two methods which are
extensively used for controlling material properties.
z In Heat Treatment:
z The microstructures of materials are modified.
z The resulting phase transformation influences mechanical
properties like strength, ductility, toughness, hardness and wear
resistance.
z Purpose of Heat Treatment:
z is to increase service life of a product by increasing its strength or
hardness, or prepare the material for improved manufacturability

1
Heat Treatment Processes

z Hardening
z Annealing
z Normalizing
z Tempering
z Surface Hardening

Hardening
z Hardening is performed to impart strength and hardness to alloys
by heating up to a certain temperature, depending on the
material, and cooling it rapidly.
rapidly
z Steel is heated and held there until its carbon is dissolved, and
then cooled rapidly,
z the carbon does not get sufficient time to escape and get
dissipated in the lattice structure. This helps in locking the
dislocation movements when stresses are applied.
z Quenching is performed
z to cool hot metal rapidly by immersing it in brine (salt water),
water, oil, molten salt, air or gas.
z Quenching sets up residual stresses in the workpiece and
sometimes results in cracks. Residual stresses are removed by
another process called annealing.

2
Annealing
z Annealing is performed to
z reduce hardness,
z remove residual stresses,
z improve toughness,
z restore ductility, and
z to alter various mechanical, electrical or magnetic
properties of material through refinement of grains.
z Cooling rate is very slow around 10oC per hour.
hour
z Process is carried out in a controlled atmosphere of
inert gas to avoid oxidation.
z Used to achieve ductility in work hardened steels.

Normalizing
z The process is similar to annealing and is carried out to
avoid excessive softness in the material.
z The material is heated above austenitic phase (1100 °C)
and then cooled in air . This gives relatively faster cooing
and hence enhanced hardness and less ductility.
z Normalizing is less expensive than annealing.
z In normalization variation in properties of different
sections of a part is achieved.
z The selection of heat treatment operations is strongly
influenced by the carbon content in the steel.

3
Tempering
z Martensite is very hard and brittle.
z Tempering is applied to hardened steel to
z reduce brittleness,
z increase ductility,
z and toughness and
z relieve stresses in martensite structure.
z In this process, the steel is heated to lower critical temperature
(350-
(350-400 °C) keeping it there for about one hour and then cooled
slowly at prescribed rate.
z This process increases ductility and toughness but also reduces
hardness, strength and wear resistance marginally.
z Increase in tempering temperature lowers the hardness.

Tempering

4
Surface Hardening
z Heat treatment methods in general change the properties of entire
material.
z Hardening improves wear resistance of material but lowers impact
resistance and fatigue life.
life Therefore sometimes there is
requirement of surface hardening
z Two methods are used, first is heating and cooing to get required
phase, and second is thermo-chemical treatment.
z Induction heating
z Flame hardening
z High frequency resistance heating
z Laser beam hardening
z Electron beam hardening
z Carburizing
z Nitriding
z Cyaniding