Heat Treatment notes

Heat treatment: is a heating to specified temperature and holding the parts for defined duration and cooling to achieve the
required strength.

Critical process parameters:

Sl Parameter Depends on Method Process Remarks
description name
1 Temperature Material
composition
2 Soaking time Part thickness
3 Cooling method Required Furnace cooling Annealing Softening
strength Air cooling Normalising Medium hard
Oil / Water quench Hardening Hard
4 Furnace Process Atmospheric air Stress - No chemical change in parts
atmosphere reliving
Annealing
Normalising
Hardening
Tempering
Carbon Gas - Carbon Source: Methanol + Acetone
carburising - Carbon is diffused into surface, to get
harder case
Vacuum - Carbon Source: Acetylene
carburising - Carbon is diffused into surface, to get
harder case under vacuum conditions
Nitrogen Nitriding - Nitrogen Source: Ammonia (NH3)
- Nitrogen is diffused into surface, to
get harder case
Ion Nitriding - Nitrogen Source: Ammonia (NH3) or
Nitrogen gas
- Nitrogen is diffused into surface, to
get harder case under vacuum
conditions
 Case hardening:
- Is a process of selectively hardening the case / surface and maintain the core properties intact.
- Chemical change in case (carbon, nitrogen, carbon & nitrogen etc)
- To improve the wear resistance in surface only

Examples:
1. Carburising
2. Nitriding
Parameters Carburising Nitriding
Purpose / application - To achieve hard case and tough  To achieve hard case , primarily
core to improve the wear resistance
- Have high case hardness, more
wear resistance
- Tough core to withstand sudden
loads
Raw Material Low carbon steel Medium carbon steel
Temperature 900 deg C 500 deg C
Case depth 0.30 mm to 2 mm Upto 0.35mm
Case hardness 60-63 HRC Minimum 64 HRC
Process duration Depends on case depth requirement Depends on case depth requirement

Example:
- to achieve 0.40mm it require
soaking time of 2 hours
- to achieve 1mm it requires around
10 hours
Parts Almost all gears and pinion
Ex: Collector gear, collector pinion, input
pinions, input gears etc..
Raw material heat Annealed or normalised
treatment condition
Example:
- to achieve 0.10 mm it require
soaking time of 5-6 hours
- to achieve 0.35mm it requires
around 40 hours
Shafts, Sleeved, bushes
Ex: Main drive shaft, TDS sleeve, Bush,
wear sleeve, upper flange, Bolt-10dia etc
Hardened and tempered condition
 HT furnaces:
Furnace type Remarks Application
Pit type - Generally it will be installed on Stress reliving
PITs Annealing
- Loading and unloading is easy for Normalising
operator Carburising
Nitriding
Muffle furnace - Box type furnaces Mainly for Hardening
- atmosphere: atmospheric air, or Annealing
generated gas Normalising
Salt bath HT salts are used for heating of parts Mainly for Hardening
(Nacl+KCl combination) Stress reliving
Air circulating furnaces - Fan is used to circulate the Stress reliving
air/atmosphere inside Carburising
- Better temperature uniformity Nitriding
inside the furnace
- For furnaces used upto 700 deg C
fan will be compulsory
Vacuum furnaces To avoid atmospheric air contamination
with parts
- No scaling
- No post heat treatment cleaning
operations
- Automated process
- Better repeatability