Heat Treatment

Heat treatment is defined as heating a metal

to a specified temperature, keeping it at that
temperature for some time followed by
cooling at a specified rate.
It is a tool to get required microstructure and
properties in the metal.
 Heat treatment

Heat treatment - controlled heating and cooling basically

The basic steps of heat treatment are:

Heating Soaking Cooling

2
 Heat treatment

Heating -> Soaking -> Cooling

Temperature Time of soaking Rate of cooling

Medium of cooling

- Different combinations of the above parameters

- Different compositions of materials and initial phases of materials

Give rise to different heat treatments

3
Annealing
Annealing is a heat treatment in which the metal is
heated to a temperature above its recrystallization
temperature, kept at that temperature some time for
homogenization of temperature followed by very slow
cooling to develop equilibrium structure in the metal or
alloy.

The steel is heated 30 to 50oC above Ae3 temperature in

case of hypo-eutectoid steels and 30 to 50oC above Acm
temperature in case of hyper-eutectoid temperature

The cooling is done in the furnace itself.

Aims of Annealing
- Increase ductility
- Reduce hardness and brittleness
- Alter microstructure to soften the metal prior to shaping by improving
formability
- Recrystallize cold worked (strain hardened) metals
- Remove internal stresses
- Increase toughness
- Increase machinability
- Decrease electrical resistance
- Improve magnetic properties
An overview of important heat treatments
A broad classification of heat treatments possible are given below. Many more specialized
treatments or combinations of these are possible.

HEAT TREATMENT

BULK SURFACE

ANNEALING NORMALIZING HARDENING

THERMAL THERMO-
& CHEMICAL
TEMPERING
Full Annealing Carburizing
MARTEMPERING Flame
Recrystallization Annealing Induction Nitriding

Stress Relief Annealing AUSTEMPERING LASER Carbo-nitriding

Spheroidization Annealing Electron Beam

910C Acm

A3

723C Full Annealing

A1

Spheroidization Stress Relief Annealing

T Recrystallization Annealing

Wt% C
0.8 %
Annealing
Makes a metal as soft as
possible
Hypoeutectoid steels (less
than 0.83% carbon) are
heated above upper critical
temp., soaked and cooled
slowly.
Hypereutecoid (above
0.83%) are heated above
lower critical temp., soaked
and allowed to cool slowly.
Types of Annealing
1. Full annealing
2. Stress relief annealing
3. Process annealing
4. Spheroidizing annealing
Process Annealing
In process annealing, the cold worked metal
is heated above its recrystallisation
temperature, kept for some time followed by
slow cooling.
The aim of process annealing is to restore
ductility of the cold worked metal.
During process annealing, recovery and
recrystallization takes place.
Full annealing
It is heating the steel 30 to 50oC above Ae3 temperature in
case of hypo-eutectoid steels and 30 to 50oC above Acm
temperature in case of hyper-eutectoid temperature,
keeping it at that temperature for some time for
homogenization of temperature followed by cooling at a
very slow rate.
The cooling rate may be about 10oC per hour.
It is to get all the changes in the properties of the metals like
producing equilibrium microstructure, increase in ductility,
reduction in hardness, strength, brittleness and removal of
internal stresses.
The microstructure contains coarse ferrite and pearlite.
Stress Relief Annealing
In stress relief annealing, the metal is heated to a lower
temperature and is kept at that temperature for some
time to remove the internal stresses followed by slow
cooling.
The aim of the stress relief annealing is to remove the
internal stresses produced in the metal due to
Plastic deformation
Non-uniform cooling
Phase transformation
No phase transformation takes place during stress relief
annealing.
Spheroidizing Annealing
In spheroidizing annealing, the steel is
heated to a temperature below A1
temperature, kept at that temperature for
some time followed by slow cooling.
The aim of spheroidizing annealing is to
improve the machinability of steel.
In this process the cementite is converted
into spheroidal form.
The holding time varies from 15 25 hours.
Heat Treatment Temperature

Acm
The temperature
ranges to which the
A3
steel has to be
heated for different
heat treatments
 Process Annealing.
Low carbon steels may
harden through cold
working. They can be
heated to around 100
degrees below lower
critical temp., soaked
and allowed to cool in
air.
Spheroidising. High
carbon steels may be
annealed just below the
lower critical temp. to
improve machinability.
 Normalising. Internal stresses caused by
rolling and rolling or forging are removed.
Steels are heated above upper critical temp.,
soaked and cooled in air. The cooling rate is
faster than annealing giving a smaller grain
structure.
Stress relieving. The component is reheated
and held at temperature for a period of time
and cooled slowly.
Hardening
Medium and High carbon steels (0.4 1.2%)
can be heated until red hot and then
quenched in water producing a very hard and
brittle metal. At 723 degrees, the BCC ferrite
changes into Austenite with a FCC structure.
 Hardening 0.6% carbon steel
The metal is heated to over 780
degrees, which allows the
carbon to dissolve into the FCC
Austenite.
Quenching the metal quickly in
water prevents the structure
from changing back into BCC.
A different structure, Body
Centre Tectragonal (BCT) is
formed. It is called Martensite
and is extremely hard and
brittle with a needle-like
microstructure.
Tempering
To remove some of the brittleness from
hardened steels, tempering is used. The
metal is heated to the range of 220-300
degrees and cooled.
Tempering colours are an indicator of
temperature on polished metals. Colours
range from yellow to brown to violet and blue.
MARTEMPERING & AUSTEMPERING
These processes have been developed to avoid residual stresses generated during quenching.
In both these processes Austenized steel is quenched above Ms (say to a temperature T1) for
homogenization of temperature across the sample.
In Martempering the steel is then quenched and the entire sample transforms simultaneously
to martensite. This is followed by tempering.
In Austempering instead of quenching the sample, it is held at T1 for it to transform to
bainite.

800
Eutectoid temperature
723 Austenite
Pearlite
600
+ Fe3C
500 Pearlite + Bainite

T
400 Bainite

300 T1
Ms
200 Austempering
Mf
100
Martempering Martensite

0.1 1 10 102 103 104 105

t (s)
 Heat Treatments

A Normalising
B Annealing or
Hardening
C Spheroidising or
Process Annealing
D - Tempering
Quenching media
Brine (water and salt solution)
Water
Oil
Air
Turn off furnace
Case hardening
Low carbon steels cannot be hardened by
heating due to the small amounts of carbon
present.
Case hardening seeks to give a hard outer
skin over a softer core on the metal.
The addition of carbon to the outer skin is
known as carburising.
 Pack carburising
The component is packed
surrounded by a carbon-rich
compound and placed in the
furnace at 900 degrees.
Over a period of time carbon
will diffuse into the surface of
the metal.
The longer left in the furnace,
the greater the depth of hard
carbon skin. Grain refining is
necessary in order to prevent
cracking.
 Salt bath carburising. A molten salt bath (sodium
cyanide, sodium carbonate and sodium chloride) has
the object immersed at 900 degrees for an hour giving
a thin carbon case when quenched.
Gas carburising. The object is placed in a sealed
furnace with carbon monoxide allowing for fine control
of the process.
Nitriding. Nitrides are formed on a metal surface in a
furnace with ammonia gas circulating at 500 degrees
over a long period of time (100 hours). It is used for
finished components.
Induction hardening
Induced eddy currents
heat the surface of the
steel very quickly and is
quickly followed by jets
of water to quench the
component.
A hard outer layer is
created with a soft core.
The slideways on a
lathe are induction
hardened.
Flame hardening
Gas flames raise the
temperature of the
outer surface above the
upper critical temp. The
core will heat by
conduction.
Water jets quench the
component.
Age hardening
Hardening over a period of time
Also known as precipitation hardening
Occurs in duraluminium which is an
aluminium alloy that contains 4% copper.
This makes this alloy very useful as it is light
yet reasonably hard and strong, it is used in
the space industry.
The metal is heated and soaked (solution
treatment) then cooled and left.