Effect of Heat Treatment Processes on the Mechanical Properties of Medium Carbon Steel
Affiliation(s)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University of Technology,Tiruchirappalli, 620 024, India. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University of Technology,Tiruchirappalli, 620 024, India. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
The importance of various form of heat treatment operations on medium carbon steel in order to forester the problem that may arise in making a wrong choice of these steel materials or faulty heat treatment operations which may give rise to serious disruption in terms of human safety, higher cost and untimely failure of the machine components is of great concern. The mechanical properties such as ductility, toughness, strength, hardness and tensile strength can easily be modified by heat treating the medium carbon steel to suit a particular design purpose. Tensile specimens were produced from medium carbon steel and were subjected to various forms of heat treatment processes like annealing, normalizing, hardening and tempering. The stiffness, ductility, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength and hardness of the heat treated samples were observed from their stress-strain curve. The value of the yield strength (σy) was observed to be higher for the tempered specimen possibly as a result of the grain re-arrangement, followed by the hardened, normalized and annealed specimens. The value of the ultimate tensile strength (σu) were also observed to be in the order; hardened> tempered>normalized>annealed.
The importance of various form of heat treatment operations on medium carbon steel in order to forester the problem that may arise in making a wrong choice of these steel materials or faulty heat treatment operations which may give rise to serious disruption in terms of human safety, higher cost and untimely failure of the machine components is of great concern. The mechanical properties such as ductility, toughness, strength, hardness and tensile strength can easily be modified by heat treating the medium carbon steel to suit a particular design purpose. Tensile specimens were produced from medium carbon steel and were subjected to various forms of heat treatment processes like annealing, normalizing, hardening and tempering. The stiffness, ductility, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength and hardness of the heat treated samples were observed from their stress-strain curve. The value of the yield strength (σy) was observed to be higher for the tempered specimen possibly as a result of the grain re-arrangement, followed by the hardened, normalized and annealed specimens. The value of the ultimate tensile strength (σu) were also observed to be in the order; hardened> tempered>normalized>annealed.
Cite this paper
T. Senthilkumar and T. Ajiboye, "Effect of Heat Treatment Processes on the Mechanical Properties of Medium Carbon Steel," Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, Vol. 11 No. 2, 2012, pp. 143-152. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2012.112011.
T. Senthilkumar and T. Ajiboye, "Effect of Heat Treatment Processes on the Mechanical Properties of Medium Carbon Steel," Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, Vol. 11 No. 2, 2012, pp. 143-152. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2012.112011.
References
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[1] Adnan, Calik. Effect of Cooling rate on Hardness and Microstructure of AISI 1020, AISI 1040 and AISI 1060 Steels. Int J of Physics Sciences, vol. 4(9), pp. 514 – 518, 2009. [2] S.Z. Qamar. Effect of Heat Treatment on Mechanical properties of H11 tool steel. J Achiv Mat and Manufact Eng, vol. 35(2), pp. 115 – 120, 2009. [3] G.E. Totten (ed). Steel Heat Treatment Handbook. vol. 1. Metallurgy and Technologies, vol. 2, Equipment and Process Design, 2nd edition. CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2007. [4] ASTM International, ASTM Handbook, vol. 4, Heat Treating, American Society for Metals park, Ohio, 1991. [5] Heat Treatment of Steel: Application and Heat Treatment of Society of Automobile Engineer, Carbon and alloy Steels, Machinery’s Hand Book, 1924. [6] D.J. Daris and L.A. Oelmann, The structures, properties and Heat Treatment of metals. The Pitman Press, Great Britain, 1983. [7] Vijay Sharan Sony Ericsson, Stress-strain Modification - An Experimental and Analytical Investigation of the Large Strain Compressive and Tensile Response of Glassy Polymers, Polymer Eng and Science, vol. 30(20), pp. 1288-98, 1990. [8] R.K. Jain and S.C. Gupta, Production Technology, A text book for Engineering students, Hanna Publishers, pp. 500 – 508, 1981. [9] W.T. Lankford, N.L. Samwap, R.F. Craven and H.E. McGanno, The Making of Steel, 11th edition, USS (United States Steel),1985. [10] P.C. Sharma, A Textbook of Production Engineering, S. Chand and Co. Ltd., New Delhi, India, 2003.