02/12/2021, 13:25 Heat Treatment: Processes and Applications - Matmatch

Heat Treatment: Processes and Applications

Heat treatment refers to the controlled process of heating and cooling a material in order to
improve its properties, performance, and strength. Most metals and alloys are heat treated in
one way or another, and the understanding and science of heat treatment have been
developed over the past 100 to 125 years. The importance of heat treatment is evident in many
products in the automotive, aerospace, construction, agriculture, mining, and consumer goods
industries, all using heat treatment to improve the properties of materials, especially steel [2].

Heat treatment adds about $15 billion per year to the value of metal products, with about 80
per cent of those being steel products [2].

Here, you will learn about:

• What heat treatment is

• The basics of heat treatment
• Heat treatment methods
• The applications of heat treatment

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What is heat treatment?

Heat treatment is a manufacturing process in which a material, generally a metal or alloy, is
altered by heating and cooling cycles under complex thermal boundary conditions and wide
temperature ranges. Heat treatment defines the quality of a product in terms of
microstructure, mechanical properties, residual stress, and dimensional accuracy [3].

The basics of heat treatment

The heat treatment process can be applied to ferrous metals such as cast-iron, AHSS, stainless
steel and other alloy steels, as well as non-ferrous metals such as aluminium, magnesium,
titanium, copper, or brass [2].

Heat treatment processes require the following three main steps [2]:

• Heating the material to a specific temperature (in the range of up to 2400 °F / 1316 °C)
• Soaking, or maintaining the specific temperature for a certain amount of time (varying from
seconds to more than 60 hours)
• Cooling at a suitable rate following prescribed methods. The material can be cooled rapidly,
slowly (in the furnace), or can be quenched (using water, brine, oils, polymer solutions, salts, or
gases).

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Heat treatment methods

Heat treatment generally consists of controlled heating, soaking and cooling steps.

There are five techniques used for the heat treatment of materials. Here is an overview of these
principal heat treatment processes and how they affect the material.

Normalising
This process consists of homogenisation or grain refinement to obtain uniformity in the
material microstructure. The material is heated to a temperature above the upper critical line of
the iron carbide phase diagram to produce a homogeneous austenitic phase. This is then
followed by a cooling phase in slightly agitated air to form ferrite. Normalising is typically
applied to ingots prior to working and steel casings prior to hardening [4][5]. Normalising
reduces hardness and increases ductility and is usually used after other processes have
unintentionally increased hardness and reduced ductility.

Annealing
In this process, the material is heated beyond its upper critical point (the temperature above
which austenite forms), soaked there and then cooled at a slow rate. This process is mainly
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used for relieving internal stresses, softening and refining the grain structure of metals. This
results in changes in the mechanical and electrical properties of the metal. Benefits of
annealing include improvement of machinability, ease of cold work, and increasing in the
dimensional stability. This process is typically used for steels and steel alloys [4].

Surface Hardening
This is also known as case hardening. It includes over a dozen treatments in which the surface
of the material is hardened creating a hard ‘case’ while the core remains tough or soft. This
provides improved wear resistance for parts such as gears, cams and sleeves. This process is
one of the most common for steel and iron.

Hardening
This process consists of heating the material above the critical point, where austenite is formed,
followed by cooling. The material can be cooled rapidly in air, oil, water or others. This rapid
cooling process is known as quenching and is generally applied to stainless and high-alloy
steels, primarily to produce controlled amounts of martensite in the microstructure and obtain
increased hardness [2]. Hardening is often used in cast-irons and steels alloyed with metals
such as nickel and magnesium.

Age Hardening
Also known as precipitation hardening, this hardening process develops high strength in metals
by alloying with elements such as copper, titanium, or aluminium. This process is generally
applied to stainless steels with the effect of increasing corrosion and oxidation resistance [6].

Tempering
This process follows a previous hardening process and consists of heating the material to a
temperature below the lower critical point followed by cooling at a suitable rate. It is used
mainly to increase ductility and toughness and to increase the grain size of the matrix. For
example, metals such as steel are often harder and more brittle than desired. Tempering
reduces internal stresses and brittleness. This process is mainly used in steels and aluminium-
based alloys [4].

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Heat treatment applications

The most common application of heat treatment is in metallurgy. The following are some
examples of the applications for heat-treated parts [2][7]:

• Automobiles
• Aerospace
• Computers
• Metalworking
• Machinery
• Construction
• Others
The global automotive industry has been a large player in the market of heat-treated metals
recently. In terms of materials, steel dominates the industry, but the forecast is for aluminium
and other metals for manufacturing automobiles and aircraft to drive market growth. The
global market for heat treatment has been evaluated at about $90.7 billion in 2016 and is
estimated to expand yearly by 3.5% from 2017 to 2025 [7].

Sources

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[1] Vanpaemel, J., History of the Hardening of Steel: Science and Technology, Journal de
Physique Colloques, 1982, 43 (C4), pp.C4-847-C4-854

[2] Heat Treating Society, ASM International, What is Heat Treating, The Hearth of Industry,
[Online].

[3] Arimoto, K., Li, G., Arvind, A., and Wu, T. W. (1988), The Modeling of Heat Treatment Process,
In Heat Treating, Including the Liu Dai Memorial Symposium, Proceedings of the 18th
Conference, October, ASM Heat Treating Society.

[4] ASM International, Heat Treating, Subject Guide, [Online].

[5] Sharma, R.C. (1996), Principles of Heat Treatment of Steels, New Age International (P) Ltd
Publishers, New Delhi.

[6] Singh, R. (2016), Welding Corrosion-Resistant Alloys In Applied Welding Engineering, Second
Edition, Elsevier.

[7] Heat Treating Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Material (Steel, Cast Iron), By
Process, By Equipment, By Application (Automotive, Aerospace), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 –
2025 (2018), Grand View Research [Online].

Fun Fact
Altering the properties of metals appears to have been performed by the early Greeks and
Romans. Their artisans knew how to control the final properties of steel by quenching and even
tested diverse quenching conditions and agents. Quenching temperatures were visually
controlled by the surface colour, which was still a method used in the 19th century. Heat
treatment processes started to be studied academically by the end of the 16th century [1].

Materials

Printdur® Powderfort Heat Treated

Acidur 4541 +AT

EFI Alloy 79 Annealed Sheet

EFI Alloy 79 Annealed Strip/Coil

Pyrophyllite heat treated at 800°C - 1000°C

Pyrophyllite heat treated at 1250°C - 1300°C

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STOL® 76M R360

1.4542 P1070

1.4986

1.7225 QT FK10.9 and Peeled

Applications

Manufacturing Additive Manufacturing Laser Powder Bed Fusion (Lpbf)

Mechanical Systems Automotive Construction Aerospace

Food Industry

Show all

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