FACULTY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

SEMESTER 3

DIPLOMA IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

MATERIAL SCIENCE (LAB REPORT I)

2DMC

EN. WAN MOHD FARID BIN WAN

NO.1 NAME MATRIC NO.

1. MUHAMMAD FARIS SYAHMI BIN D041610017
MOHAMAD NAHAR

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1.0 OBJECTIVE

1. To familiarize students with common heat treatments done on steels.

2. To familiarize students in using a Time-Temperature-Transformation diagram to
design cooling treatments to achieve particular steel structures and properties.

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 2.0 THEORY
Steels are among our most important engineering materials. Without them, the machinery and tools
required to establish any industrial activity would be difficult to imagine. A very important property
of steel is the ability to alter its hardness by simple heat treatments. Hardened steel is capable of
cutting and shaping other softer materials such as other steels, nonferrous materials, plastics, wood,
stone, etc.

Heat treatment of steels is a heat-treating process whereby the steels are exposed to an
elevated temperature for a period of time and cooled of which transforms/changes the
mechanical properties without changing the product shape. Common heat treatment
processes used for machined steels are as such annealing, normalizing, hardening (quench
and temper) and case hardening.

A hardening treatment critically depends on the rate at which the steel is cooled from high
austenitizing temperatures. The Time-Temperature-Transformation curve was developed as a
convenient way to describe the resultant structure and phase make up of the treated steel as a function
of both temperature and time. An equilibrium phase diagram only gives information on the phase or
phases thermodynamically stable at a particular T, P, composition, etc. In many practical situations,
however, true equilibrium conditions are not achieved, because a particular processing method does
not allow sufficient time at an elevated temperature for a system to achieve equilibrium. Instead, the
system is kinetically trapped in some metastable or non-equilibrium state.

The Fe-Fe3C Phase Diagram

Figure 1 shows the equilibrium diagram for combinations of carbon in a solid solution of iron. The
diagram shows iron and carbons combined to form Fe-Fe3C at the 6.67%C end of the diagram. The
left side of the diagram is pure iron combined with carbon, resulting in steel alloys. Three
significant regions can be made relative to the steel portion of the diagram. They are the eutectoid
E, the hypoeutectoid A, and the hypereutectoid B. The right side of the pure iron line is carbon in

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combination with various forms of iron called alpha iron (ferrite), gamma iron (austenite), and delta
iron.

Figure 1 Fe-Fe3C Phase Diagram, Materials Science and Metallurgy,

4th ed., Pollack, Prentice-Hall, 1988

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Isothermal Transformation (IT) Diagrams for Steels

The isothermal transformation diagram characteristic of a 1080 plain-carbon steel is shown in.

Figure 2 TTT diagram for 1080 steel. Nominal composition (wt.%) Fe-0.79C-0.76Mn. [Atlas of
Isothermal Transformation and Cooling Transformation Diagrams, ASM (1977)

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3.0 APPARATUS
3.1 Plain Carbon Steel
3.2 Gas Furnace and Tongs
3.3 Water
3.4 Quenching Oil
3.5 Face mask
3.6 Sand paper
3.7 Harderner tester
3.8 Gloves

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4.0 PROCEDURE
4.1 Specimen preparation

Treat all the specimens of carbon steel according to the specified parameters. Refer to
Table 1.

Table 1 Heat treatment process for each specimen

Specimen Austenitization Soaking time

Quenching medium
number temperature (C) (min)
A-1 900 30 Natural Air
A-2 900 30 Oil
A-3 900 30 Water

4.2 Austenization process

1. Place the specimen into the gas furnace.

2. Heat the specimen to the required temperature stated in Table 1 and holds for
specified soaking time.

4.3 Quenching process

3. Deeply immerse the specimen into the specified quenching medium in Table 1 for
rapid cooling processes.
4. Left the specimen A-1 to cool normally to the room temperature in sand bucket.

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 4.4 Grinding process

5. Grind the surface if possible, otherwise smoothen the surface with sand paper and
polish the part to be tested.
6. Make sure the surface is flat and smooth.
7. Clean the surface carefully to be tested removing any oil, grease or rust.

4.5 Rockwell Hardness Test

8. Place the specimen on the surface of the Rockwell hardness tester. The surface to be
tested must be parallel to the opposite one.
9. Select a suitable indenter for the specimen. Make sure that the indenter to be used for
the test is correctly assembled.
10. Choose a Rockwell hardness scale C (HRC scale) category for the specimen.
11. Position the specimen to be tested in such way as to avoid the sleeve coming out more
than 50 mm. The distance between specimen and indenter must be at least 2 or 3
mm.
12. Apply a minor load 10 kgf to the specimen and set the gauge to be zero.
13. Press start button at 6 dx 6 sx located at the of the base of the device and keep it
pressed until the beginning of the countdown for the predefined time of permanence
of the load.
14. Apply the major load by tripping a lever. After 15 seconds the major load is removed.
The specimen is allowed to recover for 15 seconds.
15. Wait for the indenter to return to its initial position.
16. Record the Rockwell hardness value which is appears on the display.
17. Measure the hardness values at least at 3 different points of each specimen. Use the
average data for Experimental Results.

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5.0 EXPERIMENTAL DATA

Before

Type of Hardness Average

steel
A 26.6 27.6 29.7 28.0
B 25.8 26.5 26.3 26.2
C 16.5 27.0 28.0 23.8

After quenching process

Type of Time for Type of Hardness Average

quenching cooling(min) steel
medium
Oil 16.19 A 31.5 28.4 34.5 31.5
Water 11.49 B 31.2 32.4 30.5 31.4
Natural Air 25.00 C 41.7 23.6 34.3 33.2

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6.0 EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
6.1 Graph of the overall heat treatment process (temperature vs time) for all speciment
6.2 Histogram chart to show the relationship between quenching medium hardness
achieved.

6.2

Hardness achieved (kgf) vs Quenching medium

35

30

25
Hardness achieved (kgs)

20

before quenching
15
after quenching

10

0
Oil Water Natural air
Quenching medium

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7.0 DISCUSSION

1. A) Austenitizing heat treatment is heating a steel above the critical temperature, holding for a
period of time long enough for transformation to occur. The material will be hardened if
austenitizing is followed by quenching at a rate that is fast enough to transform the austenite
into martensite.

B) Oil Quenching heat treatment that is held at a temperature at or below the martensite start.
This helps to prevent quench cracking. May also be referred to as Marquenching.

C) Tempering is a process of heat treating, which is used to increase the toughness of iron-
based alloys. Tempering is usually performed after hardening, to reduce some of the excess
hardness, and is done by heating the metal to some temperature below the critical point for a
certain period of time, then allowing it to cool in still air.

D) Normalizing of steel is a heat-treating process that is often considered from both thermal
and microstructural standpoints. In the thermal sense, normalizing is an austenitizing heating
cycle followed by cooling in still or slightly agitated air.

2. .Particularly slow cooling rates can lead to the formation of bainite, which is known to decline
the toughness and hence degrade the mechanical performance.
In this work large dimensioned samples of 5%Cr martensitic steel with a size of 810 x 510 x
350 mm and a well-defined geometry are prepared and heat treated under standard conditions
for die casting molds. Subsequently impact energy and fracture toughness in different zones
of the samples are determined. The corresponding microstructures are investigated using
optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The results are compared with those of
numerical simulations and discussed in this presentation.

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8.0 QUESTION
1. what are the applications and relative usage of medium carbon , heat treated plain
carbon steel? why there are often utilized in such of area ?
Medium carbon steel has carbon concentrations about 0.25 wt%. They also may be
heat-treated to improve their mechanical properties. The most utilized in tempered
condition.It applications in gears, crankshafts and other machine parts.

2. How are steel classified according :

Steel was classified into two which is Unalloyed steels and Alloy steels. Mild
(low carbon) steel approximately 0.05% to 0.25% carbon content with up to 0.4%
manganese content. Alloy steel is a steel that has had small amounts of one or
more alloying elements such as such as manganese, silicon, nickel, titanium,
copper, chromium and aluminum added.

3. List possible errors during heat treatment processes in your laboratory practice?

a) The reading of Rockwell hardness tester may be in accurate due to concave or

convex surface.
b) The temperature of furnace not exactly at 900c during soaking process.
c) The carbon covered on the surface of specimen of plain carbon steel that not be
grinding neatly may give inaccurate value during Rockwell hardness test.

4. Distinguish between proeutectoid ferrite and eutectoid ferrite.

-For a hypoeutectoid steel, the proeutectoid ferrite is a microconstituent that

formed above the eutectoid temperature. The eutectoid ferrite is one of the
constituents of pearlite that formed at a temperature below the eutectoid. The
carbon concentration for both ferrites is 0.022 wt% C.

5. Name two thermal properties of a liquid that will influence its quenching
effectiveness?
-The two thermal properties of a liquid medium that influence its quenching
effectiveness are thermal conductivity and heat capacity.

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9.0 CONCLUSION
This experiment demonstrated some key differences in material properties of
several heat treatments for steel. Quenching creates a very hard and brittle
material that has extremely high yield and tensile strengths. Tempering
quenched steel softens the steel and provides a tradeoff between the hard and
strong quenched steel and the soft annealed steel. Engineers are benefited by an
understanding of heat treatment because they are better able to predict how a
material will perform when loaded if they know the heat treatment state of that
material. Thus the results of this experiment, and others like it available in
literature, are very important for design and manufacturing engineer

10.0 REFERENCES
1. Heat treating. (2017, September 23). Retrieved October 02, 2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_treating
2. Heat treatment. (n.d.). Retrieved October 02, 2017, from
http://www.bodycote.com/en/services/heat-treatment.aspx
3. Metal Hardening / Metal Quenching / Metal Tempering. (n.d.). Retrieved
October 02, 2017, from http://www.metlabheattreat.com/metal-hardening-
metal-quenching-metal-tempering.html
4. Kempester M.H.A., 1984, Materials for Engineers, 3rd Edition. Hoodder and
Stonghton.
http://ethesis.nitrkl.ac.in/1138/1/Heat_Treatment_of_Low_Carbon_Steel.pdf
http://www.esabna.com/euweb/oxy_handbook/589oxy10_1.htm

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