TEMPERING

[LAB REPORT 4]

SUBMITTED TO: ENGR. LUQMAN HASHMI

GROUP7
[AROOJ JVAID | 200301060]
[HAFSA FAROOQ | 200301010]
[MAHAM SAIF | 200301066]
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

OBJECTIVE: 2

INTRODUCTION: 2

PURPOSE OF TEMPERING: 4

STAGES OF TEMPERING: 4

CLASSIFICATION OF TEMPERING: 6

MASTEMPERING VS AUSTEMPERING: 7

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE: 8

RESULT AND DISCUSSION: 8

MICROSTRUCTURE: 8

HARDNESS VALUES OF HEAT-TREATED SAMPLE: 11

CONCLUSION: 12

REFERENCE: 13

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OBJECTIVE:

The purpose of tempering is to reduce stresses and induce ductility in martensitic steel.
Martensite is a very hard structure with severe distortion making it unsuitable for many
commercial applications so we temper in order to transform it into more machinable and tough
material.

INTRODUCTION:

In the quenched martensitic condition, the steel is too brittle for most applications. The formation
of martensite also leaves high residual stresses in the steel. The properties of martensite (or as-
quenched-state structure) could be modified, as martensite is a supersaturated solid carbon
trapped in a body-centered tetragonal structure. This is a metastable condition, and as energy is
applied, the carbon will be precipitated as carbide and the iron will become Bcc.

The energy is applied by tempering or drawing, which consists in heating the steel to some
temperature below the lower critical temperature. The purpose of tempering is to relieve residual
stresses and to improve the ductility and toughness of the steel. This increase in ductility is
usually attained at the sacrifice of hardness or strength.

Tempering is the process of heating the hardened/martensitic steel to a temperature below its
lower critical temperature, soaking at this temperature, and then cooling, normally very slowly.

Fe3C particles precipitates from alpha prime phase  Tempered

Martensite  Spheroidite

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 Figure. 1. Conventional tempering process

In general, tempering occurs over a broad range of temperatures and martensite decomposes on
heating during tempering, resulting in decrease of hardness and strength but improvement in
ductility and impact strength as illustrated in Fig.2.

Fig 2: Effect of tempering temperature on mechanical properties

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Generally tempering is conducted in the temperature range 150 to 700°C, depending on the type
of steel and is time dependent as the microstructural changes occur relatively slowly.

The temperature is adjusted depending on the amount of hardness that needs to be reduced.
While it varies depending on the metal type, generally, low temperatures will reduce brittleness
while maintaining most of the hardness, while higher temperatures reduce hardness which
increases elasticity and plasticity, but causes some yield and tensile strength to be lost.

It is essential to heat the metal gradually to avoid the steel being cracked. The metal is then held
at this temperature for a fixed period. A rough guideline is one hour per inch of thickness.
During this time the internal stresses in the metal are relieved. The metal is then cooled in still
air.[1]

PURPOSE OF TEMPERING:

Tempering is performed in order to:

● Reduce internal stresses.

● Reduce brittleness.

● Induce ductility and toughness.

● Inducing machinability.

● Increase resistance to wear and tear.

STAGES OF TEMPERING:

During heating for tempering, intention is to allow the diffusion processes, the nature of which
depends on the temperature of tempering.

Tempering of carbon steels takes place in four distinct but overlapping stages:

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1. First Stage of Tempering: (50 - 200°C)

Martensite breaks down to a low carbon and transition Precipitate of e (epsilon)-carbide (Fe2.4C)
due to decrease of its tetragonality.

2. Second Stage of Tempering: (200° to 300°C)

Decomposition of retained-austenite to bainite and decrease in hardness.

3. Third Stage of Tempering: (200° to 350°C)

Conversion of the aggregate of low carbon martensite and e-carbide into ferrite and cementite,
which gradually coarsens to give visible particles and rapid softening. Formation of rods, or
plates of cementite with complete loss of tetragonality of martensite

4. Fourth Stage of Tempering:

350°C to 700°C- Coarsening and spheroidization of cementite along with recovery and
recrystallisation of ferrite.[2]

Figure 3. Reduction in hardness at different tempering temperatures

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CLASSIFICATION OF TEMPERING:

Tempering, in general, has been classified in three categories depending on the tempering
temperature range, which depends on the properties to be developed in the hardened steel.

1. Low Temperature Tempering (1-2 Hours at a Temperature up to 250°C):

Low temperature tempering is done to reduce brittleness without losing much hardness. The
tempered martensitic double-phase structure increases the strength with some improvement in
toughness, and reduction in internal stresses. Tempered plain carbon steels (0.6 to 1.3% C) have
a hardness of Rc 58 to 63. This treatment is given normally to tools of plain carbon and low alloy
steels, where the main properties to be developed are high cutting-ability, wear and abrasion
resistance with some toughness.

Low temperature tempering is also applied to components, which undergo surface hardening
treatments and case hardening treatments, like carburising, cyaniding, or carbonitriding.

2. Medium Temperature Tempering (350 C to 500°C):

This range of tempering produces ‘troostite’ microstructure indicating development of high

elastic limit with good toughness and hardness in the range of HRC 40-50. Endurance limit can
be increased by water-quenching the component after tempering in a range of 400-450°C which
induces compressive stresses in the surface layers. Because of the high elastic limit and
endurance limit, the range is mainly used for springs of both types, coil and laminated, and also
for dies. Care must be exercised to avoid 350°C embrittlement.

3. High Temperature Tempering (500-650°C):

Higher is the tempering temperature of plain carbon as well as low-alloy steels, higher is the
toughness developed. This range of tempering produces ‘sorbitic’ structure in steels which
induces the best combination of strength and toughness for machine components. Structural
steels having carbon 0.3-0.5% are commonly given high temperature tempering. Such a
treatment for 1-2 hours is almost able to relieve completely the residual-stresses developed
during quenching.

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MARTEMPERING AND AUSTEMPERING:

It will be readily appreciated that the quenching operation used in hardening introduces internal
stresses into the steel. These can be sufficiently large to distort or even crack the steel.

Martempering: is applied to steels of sufficient hardenability and involves an isothermal hold in

the quenching operation. This allows temperature equalization across the section of the part and
more uniform cooling and structure, hence lower stresses. The steel can then be tempered in the
usual way.

Austempering: also involves an isothermal hold in the quenching operation, but the structure
formed, whilst hard and tough, does not require further tempering. The process is mostly applied
to high carbon steels in relatively thin sections for springs or similar parts. These processes are
shown schematically in the TTT Curves, (figures 4a and 4b).

Figure 4. Temperature vs Time profiles for (a) austempering and (b) martempering.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE:

1. Turn on the furnace and place your sample in it.

2. Adjust the temperature of the furnace. It always starts from the room temperature value.
3. Raise the temperature till 450°C (takes about 30 to 40 minutes to reach this temperature in
the furnace).

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 4. Hold at that temperature for at least 35 minutes. After that, off the furnace.
5. Leave the sample in air for it to cool back to room temperature.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

Primarily we had performed quenching on the sample which gave us a highly distorted structure,
martensite. Martensite has needle shaped microstructure with BCT crystal structure, making it
very brittle. It has high strength but the brittleness makes it unsuitable for many applications.
Hence tempering is performed on material. When the quenched mild steel sample was tempered
at 450°C the metastable martensite transforms to bainite. Bainite is also a non-equilibrium phase
with microstructure between pearlite and martensite. It consists of Fe3C needles in the alpha
ferrite matrix. Bainite is stronger than pearlite but less strong than martensite and remains fairly
ductile.

Tempered steel has lower hardness and brittleness than martensite because the stresses that
structure contained which induced hardness in material are removed to some extent when heated
at 450°C and air cooled, giving enough time to grains to settle in relatively stable positions.
While in quenching no time was given to material hence forming a very distorted martensite.

MICROSTRUCTURE IN TEMPERING:

In case of tempering the martensitic microstructure, which was formed due to quenching, bcoz
the grains were not given enough time to get in their desired stable positions, is transformed into
bainite. The carbon precipitates out of martensite to form iron carbide(Fe3C) particles. The
brittleness inside the martensite is reduced when carbon moves out, as the stuck carbon had
caused distortion and internal stresses. These Fe3C particles take the shape of needles while the
matrix is alpha ferrite. The difference between pearlite and bainite is that bainite is a non-leminar
mixture of the two phases, Fe3C and alpha ferrite. The hard cementite needle-like plates give
hardness and strength to steel, while soft alpha ferrite matrix induces the ductility and
machinability in steel. [3]

This structure is a lot tougher than martensitic structure and can be used for various applications
as it has both hardness and toughness in optimum range. It can be machined without damaging

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the tool or undergoing fracture due to brittle nature unlike martensite. In commercial applications
this microstructure holds huge importance.

Fig 5: Microstructure of quenched sample at 50x, 100x, 200x, 500x

magnifications respectively.

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Fig 6: Microstructure of tempered sample at 50x, 100x, 200x, 500x
magnifications respectively.

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HARDNESS VALUES OF HEAT-TREATED SAMPLE:

Original Hardness Hardness Hardness Hardness

Hardness after After After After
Annealing Normalizing Quenching Tempering
Indent 1 109 67.8 77.2 197 142
Indent 2 108 69.6 75.1 192 143
Indent 3 110 68.3 77.9 200 131
Average 109 68.5 76.3 204.6 138.6

Table 1: Hardness values after different Heat treatments

Fig 7: Comparative graph of hardness after different heat treatments.

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CONCLUSIONS:

In this experiment, we performed tempering on previously quenched sample and studied the
effect of tempering on the microstructure and properties of quenched mild steel. We observed
that when we tempered martensite, its structure transformed to bainite and the properties of steel
changed. Originally a hard and brittle sample turned into a more ductile sample.

The results show a decrease in hardness compared to the quenched sample that indicates the
reduction in brittleness and increase in ductility. But the hardness of the tempered sample is still
more that annealed and normalized as well the untreated original sample. Hence tempering gives
us higher hardness and strength than annealed and normalized sample and higher ductility and
toughness than quenching.

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REFERENCE:

[1] “Tempering of Steel: Stages and Classification | Heat Treatment | Metallurgy,” Engineering

Notes India, Oct. 24, 2017. https://www.engineeringenotes.com/metallurgy/steel/tempering-

of-steel-stages-and-classification-heat-treatment-metallurgy/26205 (accessed Dec. 08, 2022).

[2] “tempering.” http://education.sptech.xyz/tempering.html (accessed Dec. 08, 2022).

[3] “Hypereutectoid Steel - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/materials-science/hypereutectoid-steel (accessed Dec.

08, 2022).

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