Heat treatment of steel:

HARDENING PROCESSES

RAYYAN AHMED ABBASI

ME-143
SECTION D
Heat treatment of steel

 Controlled heating and cooling of metal in solid state to alter it’s mechanical properties.
 Types:
 Annealing
 Normalizing
 Hardening
 Tempering
What is HARD or HARDNESS?

 Measure of resistance to localized deformation (i.e. penetration, scratching, abrasion etc.)

 It can be measured by different methods like Rockwell hardness test , Brinell hardness
test etc.
 HARDENING:
 Hardening method comprises of ‘heating to hardening temperature, holding at that
temperature ‘, followed by rapid Cooling.
 It is also called as hardening by Quenching.
Purpose of hardening;

 To develop high hardness.

 To improve wear resistance for tool steel.
 To improve tensile strength for structural steel.
 To improve yield strength for spring steel.
 MARTENSITE:
 super saturated solid solution at C in BCT iron.
 Hard and brittle.
 Needle like appearance.
Allotropic form of Fe & Eutectoid steel

 FERRITE (alpha-Fe) room temperature(RT)-910 °C

 AUSTENITE (gamma-Fe) 910-1400 °C
 FERRITE (δ-Fe) 1400-1535 °C
 EUTECTOID STEEL:
 Eutectoid steel is the stage in the iron carbide diagram, in which the steel contains
complete pearlite in its microstructure. This forms at 727°C contains 0.83% carbon.
 Eutectoid steel having carbon content less than 0.8% is Hypoeutectoid steel.
 Having carbon content greater than 0.8% is Hypereutectoid steel.
Method for hardening steel

 Heating steel 30°C above A3 line for hypoeutectoid steel.

 Heating steel 30°C above A1 line for hyper-eutectoid steel.
 Then soaking and after soaking , quenching in either oil ,water or brine sol.
Quenching methods

 Direct quenching: the component id quenched from hardening temp in quenching bath .
 Quenching in stages: quenching the parts from hardening temp to a bath maintain at a
predetermined temp.
 Quenching with self-tempering: the considerable amount of heat will retained in the
central portion. Then component is cooled in a room temperature in mild coolant like air .
 Spray quenching: the cooling from hardening temp is done by spraying quenchant
continuously on steel part.
 APPLICATIONS:
 Machine cutting tools , knife blades , bearing , armor plating and construction materials
etc.
Tempering

 improve the hardness and elasticity of (steel or other metal) by reheating and then cooling
it.
 Improves ductility of the steel.
 Process:
 Heating above A1 line .
 Soaking and the cooling in air .
THANK YOU