Martempering and austempering processes may eliminate the need for conventional oil quenching and tempering. This article presents the suitability of steels for martempering and austempering. It discusses the compositions of oils suitable for marquenching and modified marquenching and also presents safety precautions recommended for the use of martempering oils. Finally, the article explains the effect of agitation and water in a molten salt bath.

In this article, a metallurgical overview of the hardening process is provided. This overview is followed by the methodology involved in obtaining cooling curves, the currently accepted standardized methods of testing, and the use of newer methods of cooling curve data interpretation that describe the quenching process.

In this article, an in-depth overview of petroleum quenching oils is provided, including oil composition, use, mechanism of the oil quenching processes, oil degradation, toxicology and safety, and quenching bath maintenance.

This article presents the fundamentals and nomenclature of polymer quenchants and provides a detailed discussion on the polymers used for quenching formulation. The article describes the effect of polymer structure on the quenching mechanism. It also presents the factors affecting polymer quenchant performance. The article details the use of polymer quenchants for intensive quenching and then focuses on the wire patenting processes and polymer quenchant analysis. The article presents the application of polymer quenchants for induction hardening. Finally, it provides details on cooling curve analysis of polymer quenchants.

This article presents a detailed discussion on the characteristics, types, properties, quenchants, applications, advantages, and disadvantages of various types of quenching: air quenching, water quenching, rinse quenching, time quenching, press quenching, delayed quenching, fluidized-bed quenching, ultrasonic quenching, intercritical quenching, subcritical quenching, ausbay quenching, hot isotactic press quenching, slack quenching, differential quenching, and double quenching.

This article focuses on the cooling process and related transformation behavior of steel wires during patenting to identify a physical metallurgical basis for the development of nontoxic alternatives to molten lead for wire patenting. It describes the materials required, the procedures, and the results of cooling curve analysis. The article schematically summarizes the cooling behaviors of the various cooling media and the microstructure of the pearlite transformation in a lead bath.

Of the various thermal processing methods for steel, heat treating has the greatest overall impact on control of residual stress and on dimensional control. This article provides an overview of the effects of material- and process-related parameters on the various types of failures observed during and after heat treating of quenched and tempered steels. It describes phase transformations of steels during heating, cooling of steel with and without metallurgical transformation, and the formation of high-temperature transformation products on the surface of a carburized part. The article illustrates the use of carbon restoration on decarburized spring steels. Different geometric models for carbide formation are shown schematically. The article also describes the different microstructural features such as grain size, microcracks, microsegregation, and banding.

This article, with the aid of illustrations and curves, describes an experiment used to understand the cooling characteristics and transformation behavior of steel wires during patenting. The two aqueous polymer quenchants used as alternatives for lead baths, are carboxymethyl cellulose and polyvinyl alcohol. A small amount of polymer additive in spraying could modify the physical properties of the spray medium and improve atomizing status. The concentration-fog flux effect further improves the flexibility of spraying and makes it easier to control the cooling process.