Chapter 6: Austenitization of Steels

Austenitization is the heat treatment of steel in the austenite region, and it is conducted for two reasons. One is to obtain austenite as a necessary precursor for heat treatment, and this is the main emphasis of this chapter. The other is to chemically homogenize steel, so that concentration gradients formed during solidification upon casting are minimized; this is briefly described in this chapter. Austenitization topics covered in this chapter are dendritic segregation in steels, austenitization to remove coring, ingot segregation, grain growth behavior, formation of austenite, austenite grain size, heating in the austenite region, and practical austenitizing temperatures.