NPE- 632

NUCLEAR REACTOR MATERIALS

HEAT TREATMENT OF MATERIALS

Heat treatment is defined as heating a metal

to a specified temperature, keeping it at that
temperature for some time followed by cooling
at a specified rate.
It is a tool to get required microstructure and
properties in the metal.

Heat treatment - controlled heating and cooling basically

The basic steps of heat treatment are:

Heating Soaking Cooling

DIFFERENT HT PROCESSES

1. Annealing
2. Normalizing
3. Hardening
4. Tempering
5. Precipitation Hardening

ANNEALING

ANNEALING
-

1. Increase ductility

2. Reduce hardness

3. Improving formability

4. Recrystallize cold worked (strain hardened) metals

5. Remove internal stresses

6. Increase toughness

7. Decrease brittleness

8. Increase machinability

9. Decrease electrical resistance

10. Improve magnetic properties

ANNEALING

the metal is heated above the recrytallization temperature

for enough time and then cooling is done in furnace itself to
room temperature.

The three stages of the annealing process are as follows :-

1.

Recovery

2.

Recrystallization

3.

Grain growth

Recovery
Recovery is a process by which deformed grains can
reduce their stored energy by the removal or
rearrangement of defects in their crystal structure.
It occurs with softening of the metal through removal of
primarily linear defects called dislocations and the
internal stresses they cause.
Recovery occurs at the lower temperature stage of all
annealing processes and before the appearance of new
strain-free grains.

Recrystallization
Recrystallization is a process by which deformed grains
are replaced by a new set of undeformed grains
In this stage new strain-free grains nucleate and grow to
replace those deformed by internal stresses.

If annealing is allowed to continue once recrystallization

has completed, then grain growth (the third stage)
occurs.

Grain Growth
Grain growth is the increase in size of grains in a
material at high temperature.
In grain growth, the microstructure starts to coarsen and
may cause the metal to lose a substantial part of its
original strength. This can however be regained with
Hardening(metallurgy).

Types of annealing process

for steel
1. Full annealing

2. Process annealing

3. Spheroidise annealing

IRON IRON-CARBON
DIAGRAM
Eutectic
eutectoid
Pearlite and
Cementine
Austenite
Ferrite
Pearlite and
Carbide

Pearlite

Steel

Cast iron

NORMALIZING

QUENCHING & TEMPERING