Annealing , normalizing , quenching ,

martensitic transformation .
THIRUNAVUKARASU.H
13MY12
PSG TECH KOVAI

Annealing
heat

treatment that alters the

microstructure of a material causing
changes in properties such as
strength, hardness, and ductility

It the process of heating solid metal to

high temperatures and cooling it slowly so

that its particles arrange into a defined
lattice

Stages in annealing
Heating to the desired temperature ,
Holding or soaking at that temperature,
Cooling or quenching ,usually to room

temperature .

In practice annealing concept

is most
widely used in heat treatment of iron and
steals

Purpose of annealing
It is used to achieve one or more of the

following purpose .
1. To relive or remove stresses
2. To include softness
3. To alter ductility , toughness, electrical,
magnetic.
4. To Refine grain size
5. To remove gases
6. To produce a definite microstructure .

Application
Annealing process is employed in following

application
Casting
Forging
Rolled stock
Press work .

Types of annealing
Full annealing
Process annealing
Stress relief annealing
Re crystallization annealing , and
Spheroidise annealing.

Full annealing
Heating the steal to a temperature at or near the

critical point , holding there for a time period and

then allowing it to cool slowly in the furnace itself .
Example
In full annealing of hypoeutectoid steels less than
0.77% is heated to 723 to 910 C above A3 line
convert to single phase austenite cooled slowly in
room temperature .
Resulting structure is coarse pearlite with excess
of ferrite it is quite soft and more ductile
cooling rate of full annealing is 30-40 C

Full annealing

Process annealing
Process annealing is a heat treatment that is often used

to soften and increase the ductility of a previously strain

hardened metal . Ductility is important in shaping and
creating a more refined piece of work through processes
such
asrolling,drawing,forging,spinning,extrudingandhead
ing.
Example
it is extensively employed for steel wires and sheet
products (especially low carbon steels) A1 temperature
and cooled at any desired rate
The temperature range for process annealing ranges
from 260 C (500 F) to 760 C (1400 F), depending on
the alloy in question.

Process annealing

Stress-Relief
Annealing
It is an annealing process

below the transformation

temperature Ac1, with
subsequent slow cooling, the
aim of which is to reduce the
internal residual stresses
in a workpiece without
intentionally changing its
structure and mechanical
properties

Causes of Residual
Stresses
1. Thermal factors (e.g., thermal
stresses caused by temperature
gradients within the workpiece during
heating or cooling)
2. Mechanical factors (e.g., coldworking)
3. Metallurgical factors (e.g.,
transformation of the microstructure)

How to Remove Residual

Stresses?
R.S. can be reduced only by a plastic

deformation in the microstructure.

This requires that the yield strength of the
material be lowered below the value of the
residual stresses.
The more the yield strength is lowered, the
greater the plastic deformation and
correspondingly the greater the possibility or
reducing the residual stresses
The yield strength and the ultimate tensile
strength of the steel both decrease with
increasing temperature

Stress-Relief Annealing Process

For plain carbon and low-alloy steels the

temperature to which the specimen is

heated is usually between 450 and 650C,
whereas for hot-working tool steels and highspeed steels it is between 600 and 750C
This treatment will not cause any phase
changes, but recrystallization may take
place.
Machining allowance sufficient to
compensate for any warping resulting from
stress relieving should be provided

Stress-Relief Annealing
R.S.
In the heat treatment of metals, quenching or rapid

cooling is the cause of the greatest residual

stresses
To activate plastic deformations, the local residual
stresses must be above the yield strength of the
material.
Because of this fact, steels that have a high yield
strength at elevated temperatures can withstand
higher levels of residual stress than those that
have a low yield strength at elevated temperatures
Soaking time also has an influence on the effect of
stress-relief annealing

Spheroidise annealing
The process is limited to steels in excess of 0.5%

carbon and consists of

heating the steel to
temperature about A1 (727C). At this temperature
any cold worked ferrite will recrystallise and the
iron carbide present in
pearlite will form as
spheroids or ball up. As a result of change of
carbides shape the strength and hardness are
reduced.
To remove coarse pearlite and making machining
process easy .
It forms spherodite structure of maximum soft and
ductility easy to machining and deforming.
Objectives
To soften steels

Materials
Spheroidzing is extensively employed for
Medium carbon steel
High carbon (tool steel)

2. Normalizing
A

heat treatment process

consisting of austenitizing at
temperatures
of
3080C
above the AC3 transformation
temperature followed by slow
cooling (usually in air)
The aim of which is to obtain a
fine-grained,
uniformly
distributed,
ferritepearlite
structure
Normalizing is applied mainly to
unalloyed
and
low-alloy
hypoeutectoid steels
For hypereutectoid steels the

Quenching
Quenching is the rapid cooling of metal or an alloy from

an elevated temperature.
This is usually done with water, brine, oil, polymer, or
even forced or still air.
There are two types of quenching the first is cooling to
obtain an acceptable microstructure and mechanical
properties that will meet minimum specs after tempering.
The second consists of rapid cooling of iron-base alloys
and nonferrous metals to retain uniformity in the
material. Quenching is performed to control the
transformation of austentite and to form the
microstructure. When only selected areas of the material
are quenched, the process is called selective quenching

Quenching
Soaking temperature 30-50C above A3 or A1, then fast

cooling (in water or oil) with cooling rate exceeding a

critical value. The critical cooling rate is required to
obtain non-equilibrium structure called martensite.
During fast cooling austenite cannot transform to ferrite
and pearlite by atomic diffusion.
Martensite is supersaturated solid solution of carbon in
-iron (greatly supersaturated ferrite) with tetragonal
body centered structure. Martensite is very hard and
brittle. Martensite has a needle-like structure.
Kinetics of martensite transformation is presented by

TTT diagrams (Time-Temperature-Transformation). With

the quenching-hardening process the speed of
quenching can affect the amount of marteniste formed.

Martensite, Martensitic
Transformation
In an alloy, martensite is a metastable transitional structure between two

allotropic modifications whose abilities to dissolve a solute differ, the high

temperature phase having the greater solubility.
The amount of high temperature phase transformed to martensite depends
upon the temperature attained in cooling. Martensite is also a metastable
phase of steel, formed by the transformation of austentite below a specified
temperature.
Martensite is characterized by an interstitial supersaturated solid solution of
carbon in iron having a body-centered tetragonal lattice that resembles an
acicular, needlelike pattern that can be observed in laboratory testing.
Martensitic transformation is a reaction that takes place in some metals
during the cooling phase causing the formation of the acircular structures
called martensite

End