Gray irons are a group of cast irons that form flake graphite during solidification, in contrast to the spheroidal graphite morphology of ductile irons. This article describes surface hardening of gray irons by flame and induction heating. It provides information on the classification of the gray irons in ASTM specification. The article presents examples that illustrate the use of stress relieving to eliminate distortion and cracking. It describes the three annealing treatments of gray iron: ferritizing annealing, medium (or full) annealing, and graphitizing annealing. The article discusses the parameters of the tensile strength and hardness of a normalized gray iron casting. These include combined carbon content, pearlite spacing, and graphite morphology. The article concludes with a discussion on the induction hardening of gray iron castings.

This article describes the effects of undissolved carbides formed by segregation of alloying elements on the hardness of the powder-metallurgical (PM) high-alloy tool steels (HATS). It explains the calculation of exact stoichiometric carbon content that depends on the required martensite hardness, amount of carbon forming alloying elements, types of undissolved carbides during austenitizing, and the densities of the carbides. Microhardness values for carbides in HATS are also listed.

This article discusses two major sintering methods: pressureless and pressure-assisted sintering. Pressureless sintering techniques include vacuum and partial-pressure, hydrogen, and microwave sintering. Pressure-assisted consolidation techniques include overpressure sintering, sintering followed by postsinter hot isostatic pressing, hot pressing, and several rapid hot consolidation techniques. The article describes nitrogen sintering and the sintering of cermets. It reviews the furnaces used for sintering and presents the lubrication removal techniques. The article also outlines the need to control carbon and oxygen to obtain optimal properties and explains microstructure development and grain size control.

This article describes the microstructure, properties, and performance of carburized steels, and elucidates the microstructural gradients associated with carbon and hardness gradients. It provides information on case depth measurement, the factors affecting case depth, and the formation and causes of microcracks. The article discusses the effects of alloying elements on hardenability, the effects of excessive retained austenite and massive carbides on fatigue resistance, the effects of residual stresses and internal oxidation on fatigue performance of carburized steels. In addition, the causes of intergranular fracture at austenite grain boundaries and their prevention methods are explored. The article also describes the major mechanisms of bending fatigue crack initiation in carburized steels.

Distortion, encompassing all irreversible dimensional changes, is of two main types: size distortion and shape distortion. This article provides an overview of the nature and causes of distortion and discusses the process and material aspects of distortion specific to steels and tool steels. It also discusses the prediction of distortion and residual stresses by heat treatment simulation for optimizing production processes. The advantages and limitations of heat treatment simulation are also described.

This article provides general information on the definition, purposes, and quench equipment for direct-forge quenching (DFQ) and direct heat treatment (DHT) processes that are widely used in automotive and various other mechanical industries. It discusses the technological advances in these processes and their ability to produce high-quality components at low production cost from microalloyed steels. Further, the article describes the influence of carbon contents on toughness of microalloyed direct heat treated steels. It focuses on the DFQ and DHT steel technologies applied in continuous rolling mills to produce various DHT steels for machining and cold forming applications.

This article focuses on various heat-treating practices, namely, normalizing, annealing, stress relieving, preheating, austenitizing, quenching, tempering, and nitriding for cold-work tool steels. The cold-work tool steels include medium-alloy air-hardening tool steels, high-carbon high-chromium tool steels, and high-vanadium-powder metallurgy tool steels. The article also describes the properties, types, nominal compositions and designations of these cold-work tool steels.

This article is a comprehensive collection of graphs that present information on the hardenability bands of various grades of alloy steels. It also includes figures showing correlations of Jominy equivalent cooling rates, plots of end-quench bands of carbon steels, and logarithmic plots of relative hardenability of carbon steels.

The process of case hardening of steel includes three consecutive steps of heat treatment: heating; the thermochemical process with the enrichment of the surface area during the carburizing or carbonitriding stage with carbon and nitrogen; and the subsequent quenching process for hardening. This article provides a model-based description of the development of residual stresses during case hardening. It also describes the influence and effects of residual stresses and distortion in hardening, carburizing, and nitriding processes of the steel.

This article describes the effects of furnace atmospheric elements on steels. These elements are air, water vapor, molecular nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. The article provides useful information on six groups of commercially important prepared atmospheres classified by the American Gas Association on the basis of method of preparation or on the original constituents employed. These groups are designated and defined as follows: Class 100, exothermic base; Class 200, prepared nitrogen base; Class 300, endothermic base; Class 400, charcoal base; Class 500, exothermic-endothermic base; and Class 600, ammonia base. These are subclassified and numerically designated to indicate variations in the method by which they are prepared. The article also contains a table that lists significant furnace atmospheres and their typical applications.

Induction hardening involves multiple processing steps of heating and quenching which presents opportunity for errors and defects. This article discusses the common problems associated with induction hardening of shafts as well as the methods to diagnose, inspect, and prevent them. In addition to the major defects such as laps and seams that remain after induction hardening, microstructural transformation, decarburization, residual stress, and grain size, as well as variations in carbon content, composition, or microstructure can also affect the hardened part.

This article describes the common types of automotive and truck axle shafts. It provides information on steels used for induction-hardened shafts, and on the manufacturing and induction hardening methods of axle shafts. The article discusses the effects of case depth, shaft length, and carbon content on torsional properties of axle shafts, and the effect of changes in shaft diameter and those of splines on torsional shaft performance. It also provides useful information on straightening and tempering of induction-hardened axle shafts, and describes an effective technique to ensure quality of induction-hardened axle shafts.

Interplays of metallurgical factors, such as dissolved oxygen, carbon, and silicon content, that control the molten metal from melting to pouring, have a decisive influence on the quality of the castings. This article focuses on the magnesium treatment and desulfurization carried out during inoculation and nucleation of molten cast iron, assisting in the formation of cast iron. The different types of cast irons are gray cast iron, nodular cast iron, compacted graphite iron, malleable cast iron, and alloyed cast iron. The article provides an overview of the melt treatment processes carried out in cast steel, wrought and cast aluminum, and copper materials.

Hardenability is a composition-dependent property of steel and depends on carbon content and other alloying elements as well as the grain size of the austenite phase. This article provides an overview of a wide range of testing procedures used to determine and quantify hardenability of shallow-hardening, low-carbon, plain carbon, and low-alloy medium-carbon steels ranging from classical fracture and etching, Grossmann hardenability, and Jominy end-quench testing to manual and computerized computational methods. The article then uses this as a backdrop for the implementation of the core concepts of hardenability in a variety of predictive tools for calculating hardenability. The Caterpillar 1E0024 Hardenability Calculator, a personal computer-based program, calculates the Jominy curve based on the steel composition. The article also describes the method for boron and nonboron steels, with calculation examples for 8645 steel and 86B45 steel.

This article presents the different hardness test methods used to measure the effectiveness of surface carbon control in carburized parts of steel. Common test methods include Rockwell hardness measurements, superficial Rockwell 15N testing, and microhardness testing. The article provides information on the microscopic method used to detect smaller variations in carbon content, and reviews consecutive cuts analysis and spectrographic analysis that are used to accurately evaluate the carbon concentration profile of carburized parts. It describes procedures of and precautions to be undertaken during shim stock analysis, which is used to measure the atmosphere carbon potential. The article includes a discussion on the electromagnetic nondestructive tests that are used to evaluate the case depth of case-hardened parts.

Low-pressure carburizing (LPC) is one of the most popular case-hardening processes and is applied to increase the fatigue limit of dynamically loaded components. It takes place in a pressure range between 5 and 15 mbar (4 and 11 torr) and at temperature range between 870 and 1050 deg C. The LPC process runs in two different types of equipment: single-chamber furnaces and treatment chambers. This article reviews the use of simulation software for prediction of carbon profiles and typical quality control procedures. It describes the physical principles and typical applications of LPC.

This article describes the thermodynamics and kinetics of gas carburizing reactions, and details the mass transfer mechanism during gas carburizing. It discusses the various considerations involved in carburizing process planning, and reviews successful operation of the gas carburizing process based on the control of three principal variables: temperature, atmosphere composition or carbon potential, and time. The article also describes the selection criteria for alloy, carbon sources, atmosphere types, and carbon monoxide level for endothermic carburizing atmospheres. It provides information on carburizing modeling, case depth prediction, case depth measurement, and case depth evaluation as well as on carburizing equipment, and also covers the factors affecting distortion after carburizing.

Pack carburizing is a process in which carbon monoxide derived from a solid compound decomposes at the metal surface into nascent carbon and carbon dioxide. In addition to discussing the pros and cons of pack carburizing, this article provides information on the carburizing medium, compounds, furnaces, and containers used in pack carburizing. The successful operation of the pack carburizing process depends on the control of principal variables such as carbon potential, temperature, time, case depth, and steel composition. The three types of furnaces most commonly used for pack carburizing are the box, car-bottom, and pit types. Carburizing containers are made of carbon steel, aluminum-coated carbon steel, or iron-nickel-chromium heat-resisting alloys. The article also provides information on the packing procedure of workpieces.

Solid-state transformations from invariant reactions are of three types: eutectoid, peritectoid, and monotectoid transformations. This article focuses on structures from eutectoid transformations with an emphasis on the classic iron-carbon system of steel. It illustrates the morphology of a pearlite nodule and the effect of various substitutional alloy elements on the eutectoid transformation temperature and effective carbon content, respectively. Peritectic and peritectoid phase equilibria are very common in several binary systems. The article reviews structures from peritectoid reactions and details the formation of peritectic structures that can occur by at least three mechanisms: peritectic reaction, peritectic transformation, and direct precipitation of beta from the melt.

Carbon steels have wider usage than any other metal because of their versatility and low cost. Required hardenability is the most important factor influencing a choice between carbon- and alloy steel. By increasing hardenability, alloying elements extend the potential for enhanced properties to the large sections required for many applications. Alloy steels are ordinarily quench hardened and tempered to the level of strength desired for the application. Distortion during heat treatment may occur with almost any hardenable carbon or alloy steel, although distortion is usually more severe for carbon grades than for alloy grades of equivalent carbon content. The relatively low hardenability of carbon steels is a primary reason for choosing them in preference to alloy steels for parts that are to be locally heat treated by flame or induction hardening. Fabrication processes are performed on hardenable carbon and alloy steels in the unhardened condition, that is, prior to heat treating.