New methods evaluate steel hardenability in a standard gas quench test and heat transfer coefficient variation within a furnace gas quench chamber.

This article discusses the implementation of a stationary induction hardening process for crankshafts and camshafts and the measures taken to maximize production rates while controlling part distortion.

Precise controls are at the heart of today’s flame hardening processes and design, delivering consistent, measured, and accurate heat treatments.

Magnetic Barkhausen noise analysis is a nondestructive test method used since the 1980s to evaluate conditions in a variety of steel components. Primary applications include detection of thermal damage induced during grinding and evaluation of case depth in case-hardened parts. This article briefly describes its use for measure case depth and pros and cons of the using the technique for that purpose.

Ultrasound backscattering enables direct determination of the interface between two materials with different microstructures, including different grain sizes.

Tests conducted on vacuum carburized and quenched shafts identify variables that increase distortion and the magnitude of residual stresses.

Accurate measurement of retained austenite levels is important in the development and control of a heat treatment process.

Throughout metal making history, nothing has exceeded the technical importance, scientific complexity, and human curiosity involved in the hardening of steel. After the bustling 1890s, with its exciting and productive discoveries around steel metallography, a period of quiet consolidation occurred in the early 20th century. This article describes the breakthroughs in steel metallurgy that occurred after this period by such pioneers as William Chandler Roberts-Austen, Adolf Martens, Henry Marion Howe, and Edgar C. Bain.

As a regular contributor to the HTPro eNewsletter, Professor Induction answers a wide variety of questions regarding induction heating and heat treating. Included here are three recent challenges and solutions.

This article compares heat treat processes and furnace types that are typically used to harden gears.

The materials testing industry must follow market trends, keeping up with both increased use of nonmetallic materials in fields formerly dominated by metals, as well as new and challenging metal alloys. This article reviews some of the testing challenges involved with advanced materials.

In this study, 316L stainless steel samples were plasma nitrided for 64 h at 370-420 °C then subjected to surface hardness and pitting corrosion testing. The results show that interstitial hardening with nitrogen significantly improved the surface hardness as well as the pitting corrosion resistance of the austenitic stainless steel.

Microanalysis tools and techniques are often required to identify and characterize the root cause of paint adhesion failures in passenger cars and trucks. In the examples presented, different types of light microscopes, including polarized, interference contrast, fluorescence, and infrared, and various spectroscopy methods were used to reveal paint formulation abnormalities and sources of contamination that were found to be the cause of paint adhesion failures occurring on polymer-based parts and between paint layers.

Process optimization and optimal component performance can be achieved when multiple variables are measured and studied as a whole. In the investigation described in this article, fatigue performance of AISI 8620 H steel was characterized as a function of carburization case depth, hardness, residual stress, and retained austenite to demonstrate that an optimized carburization process could be engineered to meet specific application requirements.

This article series explores the indispensable role of characterization in the development of cold spray coatings and illustrates some of the common processes used during coating development.

The Center for Heat Treating Excellence (CHTE) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts is conducting a cutting-edge research project aimed at measuring the surface hardness and case depth on carburized steels for process verification and control. The results will enable companies to improve the quality of heat-treated products faster and more cost-effectively. Nondestructive techniques being evaluated initially include eddy current, meandering winding magnetometer (MWM), Barkhausen noise testing, and alternating current potential drop.

Understanding the forces behind decarburization is the first step toward minimizing its detrimental effects. This article reviews decarburization basics and results of experimental work on spring steels.

Induction coils are considered the weakest link in an induction hardening system, so advanced designs and precise fabrication are paramount to ensure long life while producing high quality treated parts. This article describes material selection and fabrication techniques for conventional inductors and new breakthrough designs.

Induction Heating and Heat Treatment, Volume 4C of the ASM Handbook, was developed to serve as a comprehensive resource on induction thermal processes to meet the needs of the induction heating and heat treating communities. This article reviews the topic coverage of the volume.

Accurate and continuous dew point measurement is key to maintaining the atmosphere required to achieve high quality and consistency of sintered products in powder metallurgy processing.