Purposes and the Procedures for the Following Metal Heat Treatments:
 
1)  Process Annealing
Annealing is a heat treatment process which alters the microstructure of a material to change its
mechanical or electrical properties. Typically, in steels, annealing is used to reduce hardness, increase
ductility and help eliminate internal stresses. Process Annealing is used to treat work-hardened parts made
out of low-Carbon steels (< 0.25% Carbon).
Annealing works in three stages – the recovery stage, recrystallization stage and the grain growth stage.
These work as follows:
(a) Recovery Stage. This stage is where the furnace or other heating device is used to raise the
temperature of the material to such a point that the internal stresses are relieved.
 
(b)   Recrystallization Stage. Heating the material above its recrystallization temperature but below its
melting point causes new grains to form without any residual stresses.
 
(c) Grain Growth Stage. Cooling the material at a specific rate causes new grains to develop. After
which the material will be more workable. Subsequent operations to alter mechanical properties can be
carried out following annealing.
 
2)  Stress Relief Annealing
Stress Relieving is the treatment of a metal or alloy by heating to a predetermined temperature below its
lower transformation temperature followed by cooling in air. The primary purpose is to relieve stresses
that have been absorbed by the metal from processes such as forming, straightening, machining or rolling.
During the recovery stage, a furnace or other type of heating device is used to raise the material to a
temperature where its internal stresses are relieved.
 
3)  Normalizing
Normalization is the process of organizing data in a database. This includes creating tables and
establishing relationships between those tables according to rules designed both to protect the data and to
make the database more flexible by eliminating redundancy and inconsistent dependency. Normalizing is
a heat treatment process that is used to make a metal more ductile and tough after it has been subjected to
thermal or mechanical hardening processes. This heating and slow cooling alters the microstructure of the
metal which in turn reduces its hardness and increases its ductility.
  
4)  Full Annealing
The full annealing process consists of heating to the proper temperature and then cooling slowly, through
the transformation range, in the furnace. The purpose of annealing is to produce a refined grain, to induce
softness, improve electrical and magnetic properties, and sometimes to improve machinability.
5)  Spheroidizing
     The purpose of spheroidizing annealing is to induce the precipitation of carbon as spherical
carbides and distribute evenly in ferritic matrix, which could lower the hardness, improve the plasticity,
as well as prevent edge crack and fracture of the steel during cold rolling process. Spheroidizing of high
carbon steel is a method of prolonged heating at a temperature below the eutectoid temperature. By
heating at this temperature pearlite, which is the lowest energy arrangement of steel, gets converted to
ferrite and cementite.
 
REFERENCES:
 Surface hardening of steels: understanding the basics By Joseph R. Davis - ASM International
2002
 Heat treater's guide: practices and procedures for irons and steels By ASM International - ASM
International 2007 Page 12-13
 Handbook of residual stress and deformation of steel by George E. Totten, Maurice A. H. Howes,
Tatsuo Inoue - ASM International 2002 Page 331-337
 Steel Heat Treatment: Metallurgy and Technologies By George E. Totten -- CRC press 2007
Page 306--308