Heat Treatment Processes

Heat Treatment
• The properties of metals and alloys may be changed as required by
heating and cooling them under definite conditions to make them
suitable for some specific application. Internal stress can be removed
from the metals, grain size may be reduced , hard surface may be
produced.
• Heat treatment does not mean only the hardening but it also
increasing the tensile strength, toughness of the constructional steel.
The metal may be made more resistive to wear, heat and corrosion.
VARIOUS TYPES OF HEAT TREATMENT
Tempering Annealing Normalising Hardening

Case
Process Hardening
Austempering
Annealing
Flame
Hardening
Martempering Full Annealing
Induction
Hardening
Low , Med. &
Spheroidise
High Temp.
Based
Annealing Age
Hardening

Diffusion
Annealing Cyaniding

Nitriding
 TEMPERING
• This heat treatment process carried out for steel parts which
have been already hardened, in order to reduce bitterness and
unequal stress develop as a result of hardening. This process
reduces brittleness and hardness but improves the tensile
strength of Steel. It increases the toughness of Steel at the
expenses of loss of some hardness. Almost all the cutting tools
need a hard cutting edge while at the same time they are
required to be tough and strong so as not to break when
subjected to shock or fatigue. Sampling is done by reheating the
hardened Steel to some temperature below the lower critical
temperature and then quenching in oil or salt bath. Reheating of
Steel during tempering temperature decreases the hardness
Somewhat But improve the toughness.
• This process is carried out to accomplish the following:
To increase the toughness.
Also, to decrease the hardness.
Relieve the internal stresses.
And to reduce the brittleness.
 Annealing
• The Steel parts produced by mechanical operation
process such as casting, rolling or drawing, extruding,
etc. develop internal stresses and change their internal
structure. This renders them hard and brittle. Annealing
is carried out for such parts to remove the internal
stresses and make them more ductile and less brittle.
The heating done during annealing affects the metal in
two stages of recovery and recrystallization.
Recovery occurs as the temperature of the metal is
gradually raised.
Internal stresses are relieved as the atom in the metal
rearrange themselves into the position that there occupied
before subjected to mechanical operation.
Recrystallization occurs as the temperature of the metal is
rise further and nuclei for the growth of new stress-free
crystal begin to form.
Annealing is carried out for accomplishing
one or more of the following:
Softening of a metal or alloy. This may be done due to improving
machinability.
Relieving internal residual stresses caused by the various manufacturing
process.
Refining the grain size of the metal or alloy.
Increasing the ductility and reducing brittleness.
Homogenizing the distribution of constituents.
• Two types of annealing carried out are:
• 1. Process annealing.
• 2. Full annealing.
• 1. Process annealing:
• It consists of heating the Steel to a
temperature little below the critical range and
then cooling it slowly. This causes complete
recrystallization in steel to form New grain
structure. This will release the internal
stresses previously the strip in the steel and
improve the machinability.
• 2. Full annealing:
• It consists of heating the Steel temperature at
or near the critical point holding there for a
suitable time and then allowing it cools slowly
in the Furnace itself. This courses wipes out all
traces of the previous structure and define
the crystalline structure in addition to the
softening of the metal. It also removes
internal stresses.
 Normalizing
• Normalizing is a heat treatment process similar to annealing in which the Steel is heated to
about 50 degree Celsius above the upper critical temperature followed by air cooling.
This results in a softer state which will be lesser soft than that produced by annealing.
This heat treatment process is usually carried for low and medium carbon steel as well as alloy
steel to make the grain structure more uniform and relieve the internal stresses.
Normalizing carried for accomplishing one or more of the following:
To refine the grain size.
Reduce or remove internal stresses.
Improve the machinability of low carbon steel.
Increase the strength of medium carbon steel.
And also To improve the mechanical properties of the medium Carbon Steel.
 Hardening
• Hardening is a heat treatment process carried out to increase the hardness of Steel. It consists
of heating Steel components to the temperature within or above its critical range. Held at this
temperature for a considerable time to ensure thorough penetration of heat at this
temperature well inside the component and then allowed to cool separately by quenching in
water oil or brine solution. This kind of heat treatment produced a small grain size in the
metal. The strength and hardness of the Steel are increased but makes it more brittle since
ductility is reduced.
• Hardening is carried to accomplish the following:
• To reduce the grain size.
• Obtain maximum hardness.
• Reduce ductility to the minimum.
• To increase the wear resistance of Steel.
• Improve the magnetizing properties.
 Quenching
• Quenching is a process of rapid cooling of materials from high temperature to room temperature or even lower.
In steels quenching results in transformation of austenite to martensite (a non-equilibrium constituent).
• During cooling, heat must be extracted at a very fast rate from the steel piece. This is possible only when a steel
piece is allowed to come in contact with some medium which can absorb heat from the steel piece with in a short
period.
• Under ideal conditions, all the heat absorbed by the medium should be rejected to the surroundings
immediately.
• The removal of heat during quenching is complex in the sense that
heat is removed in three stages.
• 1) Vapor Blanket, Some of the widely employed
quenching media are water, aqueous
• 2) Nucleate Boiling, solutions, oils (mineral, vegetable and
even animal oils), molten salts and air.
• 3) Convection.
• Some of the widely employed quenching media are water, aqueous solutions, oils (mineral, vegetable and even
animal oils), molten salts and air.
Surface Hardening: In many situations hard
and wear resistance surface is required with the tough core.
Because of tough core the components can withstand impact
load. The typical applications requiring these conditions
include gear teeth, cams shafts, bearings, crank pins, clutch
plate, tools and dies.

• Flame Hardening: involves heating the surface of a

steel to a temperature above upper critical point (850
degree Celsius) with a oxyacetylene flame and then
immediately quenched the surface with cold water.
Heating transforms the structure of surface layers to
austenite, and the quenching changes it to
martensite.
• The surface layers are hardened to about 50 – 60
HRC. It is less expensive and can be easily adopted for
large and complex shapes. The flame hardening
methods are suitable for the steels with carbon
contents ranging from 0.40 to 0.95% and low alloy
steels
Induction Hardening: Induction
hardening involves placing the steel components
within a coil through which high frequency
current is passed. The current in the coil induce
eddy current in the surface layers, and heat the
surface layers upto austenite state. Advantages
of induction hardening over flame hardening is
its speed and ability to harden small parts; but it
is expensive. Like flame hardening, it is suitable
for medium carbon and low alloy steels. Typical
applications for induction hardening are crank
shafts, cam shafts, connecting rods, gears and
cylinders.

Carburising: In this process, the steel is heated

in contact with carbonaceous material from which it
absorbs carbon. This method is mostly used for
securing hard and wear resistance surface with tough
core carburising is used for gears, cams, bearings and
clutch plates.
2 CO → C + CO2
Nitriding
Nitriding is a process of surface hardening in which
nitrogen gas is used to obtain a hard surface for the
Steel. In this process, the Steel parts are heated in an
atmosphere of ammonia (NH3 ) for a prolonged period
and then cooled slowly.

The heating temperature for nitriding Ranges from 480 degree Celsius
to 550 degree Celsius. During this process, when Ammonia comes in
contact with steel is diffuses into nascent hydrogen and nascent
nitrogen. This nascent nitrogen so produced diffuses into the surface
of the workpiece forming hard nitrites which increase surface
hardness. Beside increasing surface hardness and wear resistance
nitriding provides good resistance to corrosion due to water, air, and
steam. Nitriding is generally employed to Steel parts which are moving
like engine parts such a cylinder, crankshaft, etc.
 Cyaniding
• Cyaniding is also a surface hardening process
in which the heated parts to be surface
hardened are immersed in a bath of molten
sodium or potassium cyanide.
The immersed Steel parts are left in the
molten cyanide bath for about 15 to 20
minutes. Then the parts are taken out of the
bath and Queens in lime water to neutralize
the particles of Cyanide salt sticking to the
surface of the steel parts. The cyanide yield
carbon monoxide and nitrogen both of which
behaves as active carburizing agents in
hardening the surface of the Steel. This surface
hardening is particularly suitable for small
parts like a small gear, Bush pins, screws pins,
and small hand tool which required thin and
Hard-wear resisting surface.
Thank You