Principles of the Heat Treatment of Plain Carbon and Low Alloy Steels

Principles of the Heat Treatment of Plain Carbon and Low Alloy Steels provides readers with a working knowledge of heat treat processes and how they can be tailored to optimize the microstructure and properties of steel. The book includes chapters on quenching, tempering, austenitization, and annealing as well as hardenability, modeling, and common treatments for structural steels. The first few chapters lay essential groundwork for understanding how time, temperature, and prior processing history influence the formation of Fe-C phases and the composition and morphology of the microconstituents found in carbon and low alloy steels. The chapter on structural steels explains how deformation and thermal processing are used for the development and control of grain size and how carbon and manganese content influence toughness, hardness, and strength. The final chapter presents worked solutions to real-world problems related to hardenability, quenching, grain size, alloy content, treatment times and temperatures, and the determination of property ranges. The book includes an extensive amount of composition and property data, a glossary of terms, and outlines for various calculation methods. For information on the print version, ISBN 978-0-87170-538-9, follow this link.