Classification

1. Softening Heat treatment

• Annealing
– Full Annealing
– Partial Annealing
– Sub – Critical Annealing
– Phase transformation Annealing (i.e. First and second order annealing).
– Specific purpose Annealing (Diffusion, Recrystallization, Spheroidizing ).
• Normalizing
• Tempering
• Aus tempering
• Mar tempering

2. Hardening Heat treatment

• Includes surface hardening processes like Flame hardening, Carburizing,

Nitriding, etc.

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Annealing
• Annealing is a heat treatment that alters a material to
increase its ductility and to make it more workable.
• It involves heating material to above its critical
temperature, maintaining a suitable temperature, and
then cooling. (Eg. Furnace cooling)
• Annealing can induce ductility, soften material, relieve
internal stresses, refine the structure by making it
homogeneous, and improve cold working properties.
• The purpose of annealing may involve one or more of
the following aims:
– To soften the steel
– To improve machinability.
– To relieve internal stresses induced by some
previous treatment (rolling, forging, uneven cooling).
– To remove the residual stresses
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Annealing/Normalizing

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Full Annealing
• It is the process of slowly raising the temperature to about 50 – 70 °C above UCT for hypo
and hyper eutectoid steels

• Soaking is done for sufficient time so as to transform all to austenite

• Cooling is done at a very slower rate (approx. 20 °C/hr.) – Furnace Cooling

• Resultant Microstructure – Coarse Pearlite with ferrite - cementite

• Nature of Steel after heat treatment : Highly Soft and ductile

• Full annealing gives :

– Refined grains

– Removes Stains

– Induces softness

– Relieves internal stresses

– Improves formability

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Process Annealing / Partial Annealing
• Normally termed as “Sub-Critical annealing” – meant for alloys containing 0.2 to 0.25%C

• Process annealing is done by raising the temperature just below the ferrite – austenite
region (line A1)

• This is held long enough to allow re-crystallization of ferrite phase and then cool it in
still air

• This allows the parts to be soft enough to undergo further cold working without fracture

• Resultant microstructure : Elongated Pearlite with distorted ferrite

• Doesn’t involve any phase change as it takes place below A1 line

• Process annealing gives :

– Refined grains

– Eliminates residual stresses

– To facilitate further cold working

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Stress Relief Annealing / Stress-relieving
Objective :

• To relieve the internal residual stresses from the large castings, welded parts and cold
worked parts

• Sub-critical annealing heat treatment

• Heating the samples to about 550 – 650 °C

• Soaking it at that temperature for sufficient time (one hour and more)

• Cool it slowly in the normal air

• At the end of treatment

– This treatment will not cause any phase changes, but re-crystallization may take
place

– makes the grains and structures stress free

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Spheroidize Annealing / Spheroidization
Objective :

To improve the machinability of hyper-eutectoid steels

• If hyper-eutectoid steels are heated and cooled slowly (as like in full annealing), it induces
softness in the steels and hence can’t be used for the manufacture of cutting tools

• To improve machinability and hardenability of high carbon steels, spheroidize

annealing is employed

• This process will produce a spheroidal or globular form of cementite in a ferritic

matrix which makes the machining easy

• Prolonged time at the elevated temperature will completely break up the pearlitic structure
and cementite network.

• The structure is called spheroidite. This structure is desirable when nominal hardness,
ductility and maximum machinability are required

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Spheroidize Annealing / Spheroidization
• Spheroidization can be achieved by the following ways

• Heat the part to a temperature just below the Ferrite-

Austenite line, line A1 or below the Austenite-Cementite
line, essentially below the 727 ºC (1340 ºF) line. Hold
the temperature for a prolonged time (24 hrs) and follow
by fairly slow cooling. Or

• Cycle multiple times between temperatures slightly

above and slightly below the 727 ºC (1340 ºF) line, say
for example between 700 and 750 ºC (1292 - 1382 ºF),
and slow cool. Or

• For tool and alloy steels heat to 750 to 800 ºC (1382-

1472 ºF) and hold for several hours followed by slow
cooling.

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Spheroidize Annealing / Spheroidization
• All these methods result in a structure in which all the Cementite is in the form of small
globules (spheroids) dispersed throughout the ferrite matrix.

• This structure allows for improved machining in continuous cutting operations such as
lathes and screw machines.

• Spheroidization also improves resistance to abrasion

• Low Carbon steels are seldom spheroidized – because of less amount of carbon - which
form lesser amount of Cementite network..

• Also in the spheroidized conditions, LC steels are excessively soft and “gummy”. The
cutting tool will tend to push up the material rather than cut it, causing excessive heat and
wear on the cutting tip

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Normalizing
• Normalizing of steel is carried out by heating approximately to about 70 – 90 oC above
the upper critical temperature line (A3 or Acm) followed by cooling in still air to room
temperature.

• The aim of which is to obtain a fine-grained, uniformly distributed, ferrite–pearlite

structure

• Normalizing is applied mainly to unalloyed and low-alloy hypoeutectoid steels

• It may be noted that for hypereutectoid steels, it is necessary to heat it above the Acm line
in order to dissolve the cementite network.

• The purpose of normalizing is to produce harder and stronger steel than full annealing, so
that for some applications normalizing may be a final heat treatment.

• Normalizing is also carried out to improve machinability

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Normalizing
Purposes of Normalizing

• Produces uniform grain structure

• Refine grain size

• Reduces internal stresses

• Improves engineering properties of steel

• Improves hardness and hardenability Tensile strength and the yield point is higher
• Improves ductility for the normalized steels as compared to
annealed ones

Normalizing after Rolling

• After hot rolling, the structure of steel is usually
oriented in the rolling direction
• To remove the oriented structure and obtain the
same mechanical properties in all directions, a
normalizing annealing has to be performed
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