Heat treatment
Heat treatment
(OP)
1. How important are the following steps in the heat treat process of steel(6150)? What if these steps of the heat treat are missed?:
Annealing, Subcritical Annealing, Pre-hardening stress relieving, and post tempering stress relieving.
2, If the material was hardened too high during the temper can the temper be reperformed to a higher temp in order to get a lower hardness without ill effects.
Thanks
Annealing, Subcritical Annealing, Pre-hardening stress relieving, and post tempering stress relieving.
2, If the material was hardened too high during the temper can the temper be reperformed to a higher temp in order to get a lower hardness without ill effects.
Thanks





RE: Heat treatment
How about some more info on what shape and size the part is.
Nick
I love materials science!
RE: Heat treatment
RE: Heat treatment
While re-tempering is a minor sin, there are a lot of ways with different heat treatments to reach similar hardness that result is significantly different fatigue resistance and toughness.
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RE: Heat treatment
I agree with EdStainless that this part likely involves significant testing for qualification, which can make process changes difficult to accept/implement. Having said that, my answers to your questions are as follows:
1. Annealing and sub-critical annealing are performed in order to increase the formability of the steel and to decrease the forces needed for deformation. A low-ductility grade like 6150 is difficult to deform without cracks, etc. unless it is annealed. The sub-critical anneal is a recrystallization step after some intermediate forming that is needed in order to complete the final shape. Pre-hardening stress-relieving is done in order to reduce the tensile stresses that are present on the surface and to reduce the amount of distortion that will occur after hardening. Post-tempering stress relieving is likely performed after chromium plating or some similar process. It will be difficult to eliminate any of these without a thorough evaluation of the entire manufacturing process.
2. This is unlikely to be a significant problem, provided that the microstructure is good (100% martensite transformation, no decarburization, etc.).
RE: Heat treatment
RE: Heat treatment