Lecture 20

Heat Treatment of Steels

1. Annealing 1) Aim of annealing (1) reduction of hardness (2) production of required structure 2) Annealing for softness or spheroidizing anneal (see Fig-1) (1) annealing temperature for hypoeutectoid steels: below A1 (2) annealing above A1 transforms to (3) if annealing below A1, cooling rate does not influence hardness at room temperature (4) annealing of cementite lamellae spheroidized into globules (see Fig-2, Fig-3) above A1: large spheroidized structure blow A1 : fine, more lamellar and bard structure
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Fig-1

(Fe-C equilibrium diagram showing various heat treatments) 2

Fig-2

(Typical annealed structure showing completely spheroidized carbides)

Fig-3

Wholly lamellar pearlite: (a) annealing at 900 and transformatin at 700, (b) annealing at 900 and transformation at 625 4

3) Types of annealing (1) recrystallization annealing - cold work increases hardness - by annealing above 600, stress free grains are formed at expense of deformed original grains recrystallization (2) stress relief annealing (3) isothermal annealing (4) quenching annealing (5) homogenizing annealing (6) hydrogen annealing 2. Normalizing - heating above A3 temperature holding for 10 to 20 min allowing to cool freely in air - normalizing refines coarse grains resulting from high temperature (see Fig-4)
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Fig-4

Influence of normalizing on grain size; (a) as-rolled and (b) normalized 6

3. Hardening treatment (see Fig-5) 1) Direct quenching to martensite - quenched straight to from hardening temperature to room temperature - cooling below Ms C atoms remain in solid solution in Fe space available for C atoms is less in Fe than Fe thus, C atoms expand lattice stress increases hardening

(bcc fcc C atom )

2) Martempering - cooling takes place in two stages cooled to Ms starting temperature and holding cooled again to room temperature in air martensite
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Fig-5

3) Austempering (Fig-6) - cooled to just above Ms temperature and keep for long time until completely transformed to bainite increased toughness
Fig-6

4) Patenting - well accepted treatment in wire industry - main purpose is to convert coarse nonuniform ferrite/pearlite or carbide/pearlite (Fig-7) into uniform fine pearlite and bainite suitable for wire drawing without fracture - applied to steel wire with C content of 0.6 1.1 % - heating to above Ac3 (850-1100) to be fully austenized and followed by quenching at between 500-550 for various periods - quenched to 500-550 and held in Pb bath

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Fig-7. Cold drawn wire: curly grain structure

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4. Intercritical Heat Treatment

- new approach to developing good combinations of strength and ductility - consisting of intercritical annealing of steels (Fig-8) - temperature ranges from A1 to A3 - the higher the intercritical annealing temperature, the more austenite formed during annealing - intercritical annealing eliminates discontinuous yielding and significantly increases ductility (see Fig-9) * because of formation of martensite by converting pearlite to matensite during cooling * quenching is needed to form martensite

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Fig-9

Fig-8

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-Microstructures of intercritically annealed steels (Fig-10) (a) highest cooling rate: transformed to martensite, surrounding martensite is ferrite(new) which is transformed from some of austenite before martensite formation (b) with decreasing colling rate: ferrite volume increases and less martensite and more ferrite-carbide mixtures form
Fig-10

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- Mechanical property changes with cooling rate (Fig-11)

Fig-11

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5. Tempering 1) tempering reduces brittleness which is resulted from martensite formation 2) mechanism of tempering process 3 stages (Fig12) (1) stage 1: 80-160 ; - precipitation of carbide (C rich carbide) - C in martensite is reduced to 0.3% (2) stage 2: 230-280; - decomposition of retained to bainite

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(3) stage 3a: 160-400: - formation and growth of Fe3C at expense of carbide (4) stage 3b: 400-700: - continued growth and spheroidization of Fe3C

Fig-12

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3) Products of decomposition: bainite or martensite depending on tempering temperature and time(Fig-13)

-bainite forms isothermally at constant temerature

- martensite forms as cooling starts from tempering temperature

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