Introduction

Proper heat treatment of steels is one of the most important factors in determining how they will
perform in service. Engineering materials, mostly steel, are heat treated under controlled
sequence of heating and cooling to alter their physical and mechanical properties to meet desired
engineering applications.

Heat treatment operation is a means of controlled heating and cooling of materials in order to
effect changes in their mechanical properties. Heat treatment is also used to increase the strength
of materials by altering some certain manufacturability objectives especially after the materials
might have undergo major stresses like forging and welding. It was however known that
mechanical properties of steel were strongly connected to their microstructure obtained after heat
treatments which are performed to achieve good hardened and tensile strength with sufficient
ductility.

In Engineering similar materials are required to possess very strange combination of properties
when they are subjected to different conditions of working. They may have to be subjected to
twisting, impact loading, as well as to withstand various stresses like tensile, compressive and
shear in different places of their utility. Moreover for using them or their alloys as a tool
material, they may require hardness, toughness, along with softer shank. In order to induce
certain desirable
properties in the metals, Heat treatment operations are applied to the material. For this purpose
the
metals may have to be heated to different temperatures, cooled and reheated in different media.
The properties of metals can be improved, graded or altered practically by controlled heating and
cooling i.e. by heat treatment.

Annealing, hardening and tempering are the most important heat treatment processes often used
to change mechanical properties of engineering materials. The purpose of heat treating is to
analyze the mechanical properties of the steel, usually ductility, hardness, Yield strength, tensile
strength and impact resistance. The heat treatment develops hardness, softness, and improves the
mechanical properties such as tensile strength, yield strength, ductility, corrosion resistance and
creep rupture. These processes also help to improve machining effect, and make them versatile.
The mechanical properties can easily be modified by heat treating to suit a particular design
purpose. In the present study, selected samples are heat-treated at certain temperature above the
austenitic region and quenched in order to investigate the effect on the mechanical properties
microstructure of the mild steel. The changes in mechanical behavior and microstructure as
compared with unquenched samples are explained in terms of changes in tensile strength. Results
showed that the mechanical properties of mild steel can be changed and improved by various
heat treatments for a particular application.