Salt Contamination of Steel before Heating
Salt Contamination of Steel before Heating
(OP)
I have a question about road salt contamination of 5160 alloy bar. The bar in question was transported un-tarped and was contaminated with road salt.
During processing the bar is austenized, formed, quenched in oil then tempered to 46 HRC to make a spring.
Do you think the road salt could detrimentally effect the spring in fatigue? Would it be worth washing it off?
If spring steel is quenched in molten salt for a bainite microstructure I would imagine this would be similar......and from what I understand the salt does not have to be washed off......
TIA
During processing the bar is austenized, formed, quenched in oil then tempered to 46 HRC to make a spring.
Do you think the road salt could detrimentally effect the spring in fatigue? Would it be worth washing it off?
If spring steel is quenched in molten salt for a bainite microstructure I would imagine this would be similar......and from what I understand the salt does not have to be washed off......
TIA





RE: Salt Contamination of Steel before Heating
cheers,
gr2vessels
RE: Salt Contamination of Steel before Heating
RE: Salt Contamination of Steel before Heating
RE: Salt Contamination of Steel before Heating
If your management places you between a rock and hardplace, I would offer the following as a possible out for you; have the spring steel shipment thoroughly cleaned and subjected to a detailed visual inspection, as a minimum, followed by a wet fluorescent MT if areas of surface pitting is detected. Road salt on this heat treated spring material may cause corrosion pitting attack on the surface, and I would at least want to know what the surface condition is before accepting it for use in a spring application. The cleaning cost and any supplemental NDT are small in comparison to problems in service.
RE: Salt Contamination of Steel before Heating
We are talking 300 ton of steel so yes the NDT is a small part of the cost of the steel