Manufacturing Laboratory-I (ME207) Report

Date of submission: 10/02/2021 Name: Ashutosh Garg

Group: G7 Entry No: 2018MEB1213

Experiment No. 1

Experiment title: Heat Treatment of Mild Steel

Objectives:

1. To understand the various heat treatment processes and observe the properties
with Mild steel as the sample. The procedures to be followed are:
a. Annealing
b. Normalizing
c. Quenching
2. Measuring and performing the Hardness via Rockwell Hardness Test.

Material and apparatus used:

1. For Cold Work: Anvil, Plier and Hammer.

2. For Heating: Electric Furnace
3. The material used: Mild Steel.
4. Other: Chop Saw, Vernier Caliper, Gloves, tongs, crucibles
5. Hardness Testing Machine.

Experimental procedure:

1. Take six samples from Mild steel.

2. Do a fixed amount of cold work (we did 20% in the experiment performed in Video)
and kept the Sample No. 1 as a reference.
3. Rest sample will undergo Heat treatment Processes, namely Annealing (Sample
no. 2), Normalizing (Sample no. 3, 4) and Quenching (Sample no. 5, 6).
4. Now, for the Heat treatment, the samples are heated at 950 oC for 30 minutes
and 60 minutes (Soaking time) for different Samples and then cooled down by
other techniques, i.e.:
i. For Annealing, furnace cooling is done:
Only one sample for a soaking time of 30 minutes is considered.
Then Specimen was kept in the furnace only to get cooled after the
soaking was done.
 ii. For Normalizing, Air cooling is done (Sample kept in the open
air.):
Two samples, one for a soaking time of 30 minutes and one for
soaking 60 minutes, were considered. After soaking, the specimens
were put outside the furnace in the open air to get cooled down.
iii. For Quenching, Sample is put into the water:
Two samples, one for 30 minutes of soaking time and another for 60
minutes of soaking time, was considered. After that, Specimen was
put into water and cooled down quickly.
5. After Heat treatment, Hardness Measurements are done, and the observations
were compared for different samples. We had used a Rockwell Hardness test
Scale A for the hardness values. As a general trend in every experimental
procedure, five readings were taken for each Specimen, and the averaged out
value was considered at the end for the comparisons and results.

Results and Discussion:

Sample Cold Heating Soaking Type of Process Hardness

No. Work Temperature Time (Mins.) Cooling Used Value
(oC) (HRA)
1 20% Not Performed N/A N/A Cold Work 70.40
2 20% 950 30 Furnace Annealing 61.16
3 20% 950 30 Air Normalizing 55.18
4 20% 950 60 Air Normalizing 63.36
5 20% 950 30 Water Quenching 56.78
6 20% 950 60 Water Quenching 67.20

Comparison of results
80
70.4
67.2
70 61.16 63.36
60 55.18 56.78

50
40
30
20
10
0 0
0
Cold Work Annealing Normalizing Quenching

Soaking time 30 Mins Soaking Time 60 Mins

As we can see, Cold Worked material was the hardest as the grains were rearranged and
were not treated by heat and the change in the grain properties was not observed. Hence
the hardness number was the highest in the Cold worked sample.
Seeing the other results, Annealing showed the highest hardness value, whereas
Quenching and Normalizing had similar values for the same soaking times of 30 minutes.
a. In Annealing, the cooling process was very slow as it was done under the
furnace and due to which the grain microstructure experienced a massive
change, and the stresses were released as sufficient time was given.
b. Normalizing was also similar but was done a little rapidly compared to
Annealing as it was done under the air and hence smaller grain structure
may also be observed here.
c. In Quenching the stresses were not that released due to a rapid cooling
process and hence are expected to have higher hardness than the
normalizing samples.
Also, it is a major point to observe that the increase in the soaking time can lead to better
hardness in the final product.
Though the experiment was done carefully it was told that the readings might not be
accurate due to the different reasons explained; hence it won’t be a good idea to discuss
the results by keeping the readings as the only reference and hence I also used theory to
explain the things.

Learning from the experiments:

1. I learnt to operate the Hardness testing machine.

2. The part where different type of hardness tests explained was new learning for
me. (Micro and Macro Hardness Measurement Tests)
3. I also learnt how Soaking time affects material properties.
4. Some new words: Vickers test.