Heat Treatment of Steel

Overall Steel Heat Treatment
Heat treat the hole steel, then cooling it at the right temperature. It can change the whole mechanical property. It includes annealing, normalizing, quenching, tempering. And the quenching and tempering are closely related. People always used together. Each part of them is indispensable.Annealing
Heat the material to make it get the appropriate temperature. According to the size and material of it to choose the right time of heat preservation. Then make it cool slowly. The purpose is to make the material get ready for quenching. Make the material internal structure get equilibrium state. Then it will get great technological properties.Normalizing
The steel sample is heated to a suitable temperature and then cooling it in the air. Its influence on the material is the same as annealing. But the resulting tissue is finer. People usually use it to improve the free cutting performance of mild steel. And sometimes use it to do finally heat treatment for the material of lower request.Quenching
Heat the steel material to get the right temperature and keep it. Then make it fast cooling in the transmitter substance of water, oil, inorganic salts and etc. After quenching, steel material will become harder. But at the same time, it becomes brittle.Tempering
In order to make steel get lower brittleness. The steel after quenching is kept warm for a long time at a suitable temperature above room temperature and below 650 ° C and then cooled. These four steps will evolve different heat treatment according to the different temperature and the way of cooling. In order to get great strength and toughness, need to do the processing of combining quenching and high-temperature tempering. Some alloy steel would form a supersaturated solid solution after quenching. Put it at the room temperature for a long time. Then its hardness, strength, electrical magnetic and etc will get improved. People call this heat treatment as aging treatment.