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Study and Analysis On Heat Treatment Process and Microstructure of Low Carbon Steel
Study and Analysis On Heat Treatment Process and Microstructure of Low Carbon Steel
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Technology, Engineering and Science (A Bimonthly Open Access Online
Journal) Volume2, Issue3, May-June, 2015.ISSN:2349-7173(Online)
temperature of 900 deg Celsius.
property in the material.
There the specimen was kept for 2 hour.
The specimen was heated to the temperature of 900 degree
Then the furnace was switched off and the specimen
Celsius and sufficient time was allowed at that temperature,
was taken out.
so that the specimen got properly homogenized.
Now the specimen is allowed to cool in the ordinary
A salt bath was prepared by taking 50% NaN03 and 50 %
environment. i.e. the specimen is air cooled to room
KnO3 salt mixture. The objective behind using NaNO3 and
temperature.
KNO3 is though the individual melting points are high the
The process of air cooling of specimen heated above
mixture of them in the bath with 1: 1 properties from an
Ac1 is called normalizing
eutectic mixture this eutectic reaction brings down the
melting point of the mixture to 290 deg Celsius. The salt
Quenching:
This experiment was performed to harden the cast iron. The
remains in the liquid state in the temp range of 290-550 deg
process involved putting the red hot cast iron directly in to a
Celsius whereas the salt bath needed for the experiment
should be at molten state at 350 deg Celsius
liquid medium.
After the specimen getting properly homogenized it was
taken out of the furnace and put in another furnace where
The specimen was heated to the temp of around
the container with the salt mixture was kept at 350d deg
900Celsius and was allowed to homogenize at that
Celsius.
temp for 2 hour.
At that temp of 350 degree the specimen was held for 2
An oil bath was maintained at a constant temperature
hrsIn this time the austenite gets converted to bainite. The
in which the specimen had to be put.
objective behind
After 2 hour the specimen was taken out of the furnace
choosing
the temperature of 350 deg Celsius is that at this
and directly quenched in the oil bath.
temperature
will give upper bainite which has fine grains so
After around half an hour the specimen was taken out
that the properties developed in the materials are excellent.
of the bath and cleaned properly.
An oil bath also maintained so that the specimen can be
Now the specimen attains the liquid bath temp within
quenched.
few minutes. But the rate of cooling is very fast
So
after sufficient time of 2 hr the salt bath was taken out of
because the liquid doesn't release heat induce some
the
furnace and the specimen were quenched in the oil bath.
amount of softness in the material by heating to a
An oil bath is also maintained so that specimen can be
moderate temperature range.
quenched. Now the specimens of each heat treatment are
Tempering
ready at room temperature. But during quenching in a salt
bath, or oil bath or cooling due to slight oxidation of the
First the '4' specimen were heated to 900 deg Celsius
surface of cast iron, there are every possibility of scale
for 2 hour and then quenched in the oil bath maintained
formation on this surface if the specimens are sent for testing
at room temp
with the scales in the surface then the hardness value will
Among the 4 specimen 2 were heated to 250
vary and the specimen will also not be gripped properly in
degCelsius. But for different time period of 1 hour,
the UTS To avoid this difficulties the specimens were
1and half hour and 2 hour respectively.
ground with the help of belt grinder to remove the scales
Now 3 more specimens were heated to 450 deg
from the surface. After the scale removal the Specimens are
Celsius and for the time period of 1 hour, 1and a half
ready for the further experiments.
hour and 2 hour respectively.
2.3 Hardness testing:
The remaining specimens were heated to 650Celsius for The heat treated specimens hardness were measured by means
same time interval of 1 hour. 1 and half and 2 hour of Rockwell hardness tester. The procedure adopted can be
listed as follows:
respectively.
First the brale indenter was inserted in the machine; the load
After the specimens got heated to a particular temperature
is adjusted to100 kg.
for a particular time period, they were air cooled. The heat
The
minor load of a 10 kg was first applied to seat of the
treatment of tempering at different temp for different time
specimen.
periods develops variety of properties within them.
Now the major load applied and the depth of indentation is
automatically recorded on a dial gage in terms of arbitrary
. Austempering
hardness numbers. The dial contains 100 divisions. Each
division corresponds to a penetration of .002 mm. The dial
This is the most important experiment carried out for the
is reversed so that a high hardness, which results in small
project work. The objective was to develop all round
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Technology, Engineering and Science (A Bimonthly Open Access Online
Journal) Volume2, Issue3, May-June, 2015.ISSN:2349-7173(Online)
penetration, results in a high hardness number. The
hardness value thus obtained was converted into C scale by
using the standard converter chart.
Table 1 Hardness vs. tempering temperature for constant
tempering time of 1 hour
Specimen Specification
Time(in
hours)
Hardness
1 hour
43
1 hour
36
1 hour
33
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Technology, Engineering and Science (A Bimonthly Open Access Online
Journal) Volume2, Issue3, May-June, 2015.ISSN:2349-7173(Online)
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Elongation%
9.65
14.369
20.476
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Technology, Engineering and Science (A Bimonthly Open Access Online
Journal).Volume2, Issue3, May-June, 2014. ISSN: 2349-7173(ONLINE)
45
1 hr
2 hr
H
ard
n
ess(H
V
)
40
35
30
25
20
200
400
600
Temperature (Degree)
Fig 5. Hardness vs. tempering temperature for constant tempering time of 1 hour& 2 hr
350
Y
ie
ldS
tre
n
g
th(M
P
a
)
1hr
2hr
300
250
200
400
600
Temperature (Degree)
Fig. 6 Tensile properties for different tempering temperature for 2 hour tempering time
More is the tempering time (keeping the tempering
temperature constant), more is the ductility induced in the
specimen. This clearly implies that the UTS and also to some
extent the yield strength decreases with increase in
tempering time where as the ductility (% elongation)
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Technology, Engineering and Science (A Bimonthly Open Access Online
Journal).Volume2, Issue3, May-June, 2014. ISSN: 2349-7173(ONLINE)
4.CONCLUSION
From the various results obtained during the project work it
can be concluded that:
Twice quenching of the steel from the temperatures 900C
and
750C
and
quenching
after
the
partial - transformation results in a various shape of
martensite.
The mechanical properties vary depending upon the various
heat treatment processes.
Hence depending upon the properties and applications
required we should go for a suitable heat treatment processes.
Ductility is the only criteria tempering at high temperature
for 2 hours gives the best result among all tempering
experiments however it is simply the hardness of the low
carbon steel that is desired than we should go for low
temperature tempering for 1 hour or so.
It is seen that annealing causes a Tremendous increase in %
elongation (ductility). It can be clearly seen comparing all the
heat treatment processes, optimum Combination of UTS,
Yield Strength, % Elongation as well as hardness can be
Obtained through austempering only.
5. REFERENCES
[1] John V.B (1980), Introduction to material science, 2nd edition.
Pp 321-324.
[2] Alawode, A.J 2002, Changing in the mechanical properties and
stresses due to cold work on the steel. University of iorin, Nigeria.
[3] T. Senthilkumar and T. K. ajiboye.Heat treating on the
mechanical properties of medium carbon steel and materials
characterization. Vol. 11, no-2 pp.143-152, 2012 jmmce.org printed
in USA.
[4] ASTM international, ASTM hand book, volume 4, heat treating,
American society for metals park, Ohio, 1991
[5] S. K. Akay, M. Yazici, A. Avinc. The heat treating
onthemild
steel to get desired properties. Proceedings of
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