INCREASING THE PERFORMANCE OF CHAIN SPROCKET BY USING

CRYOGENIC TREATED AND NORMALIZING IN SUPERFICIAL HEAT

TREATMENT
 ABSTRACT

The major concern of researchers is to improve the tribological

performance of the products with the aim to gain security, energy efficiency
and lifetime.
The behaviour of mild steel(chain sprocket material) to the various
influent parameters such as load, stress, and exposure time has been studied.
The study of such parameters has been done after cryogenic treatments. The
weight loss as a function of applied load and the exposure time was
determined at a constant frequency.
The analysis and identification of surface degradation is complex. One
must consider the changes in the microstructure, such as phase changes,
precipitation, aging etc. The weight loss as a function of time at different
loads was studied in order to draw conclusions and identify the likely causes
of the phenomena causing fretting wear. This paper addresses the benefits of
normalizing on metals like cast iron on a comparative basis and stresses upon
the application of chain sprocket .
This paper discussed chain sprockets are treated with cryogenic method
and to predict the hardness, wear strength and other results are analysing.
 Introduction
• The purpose of heat treatment is to soften the metal, to
change the grain size, to modify the structure of the
material and relive the stress set up in the material. The
various heat treatment process are annealing,
normalizing, hardening, austempering, martempering,
tempering and surface hardening. normalizing is the
process of hardening the surface of metal, often mild
steel by infusing elements into the metal surface
forming a hard, wear resistance skin but preserving a
tough and ductile applied to disc plate. The basic study
in my research is Procedural study, Micro structure
study, testing of hardness gradient of automobile chain
sprocket.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

NAME REFERENCE

Zakharov, Heat treatment is a process utilized to change certain characteristics

1998 of metals and alloys in order to make them more suitable for a
particular kind of application. In general, heat treatment is the term
for any process employed which changes the physical properties of
steel by either heating or cooling. When properly performed, heat
treating can greatly influence mechanical properties such as strength,
hardness, ductility, toughness, and wear resistance. The chain
sprocket wear rate will be increased, when the load reaches a critical
value for a specific geometry. Most can be heat treated for the
purpose of improving mechanical properties such as hardness and
wear resistance. This is accomplished due to the heat treatment
fundamentally altering the microstructure of the steel.
 LITERATURE REVIEW
NAME REFERENCE

Suchanek and Kuklik Methods to enhance the life of the component are based on
(2009) application 12 of wear resistant materials or formation of
hard, wear-resistant surface material. The wear rate of steels
depends on their chemical constituents and conventional
heat treatment as outlined

Susheel Kaila (2010) cryogenics is an exciting, important and inexpensive method

to increase the life of the steel component. It improves
abrasive wear resistance, erosion and corrosion resistance
and stabilizes the strength characteristics of the steels

Hasim et al (2002) the cryogenic treatment of materials are gaining importance

in recent days because of their potential to produce steel
components that find enormous application in industries,
nuclear power plants, fertilizer plants, medical, aerospace
and avionics.
 OBJECTIVES
• Study the wear progression on chain sprocket.
• Study the change of surface finish throughout
the component
• Assess and analyze the results obtained for
chain sprocket , and evaluate their
performance based on the effects of the
cryogenic materials used.
 PROCESS METHODOLOGY:
CRYOGENIC TREATED MATERIAL TEST FLOW:
 SELECTION OF METAL

• CHAIN SPROCKET ( mild steel)

 CHAIN SPROCKET
• A sprocket or sprocket-wheel is a profiled wheel
with teeth, cogs, or even sprockets that mesh with
a chain, track or other perforated or indented
material. The name 'sprocket' applies generally to
any wheel upon which radial projections engage a
chain passing over it. It is distinguished from a
gear in that sprockets are never meshed together
directly, and differs from pulley in that sprockets
have teeth and pulleys are smooth.
SELECTION OF SPROCKET
Chain sprocket normalizing
 Normalizing
• Normalizing Heat Treatment process is heating
a mild steel above the critical temperature,
holding for a period of time long enough for
transformation to occur, and air cooling.
Normalized heat treatment establishes a more
uniform carbide size and distribution which
facilitates later heat treatment operations and
produces a more uniform final product.
 CRYOGENIC
This is a technology where everything we process gets frozen at ultra-low
temperatures of -193°C. Then everything is held down at temperatures around
of -193 °C for 12-48 hours followed by gradual ascend and tempering. This
process consists of controlled cooling of conventionally hardened materials to a
specified temperature followed by controlled heating of the materials back to
the ambient temperature for subsequent tempering process.
The cryogenic treatment can be classified into three different temperature
regimes.
(1) Cold Treatment (CT, ≥193 K or -80 °C)
(2) Shallow Cryogenic Treatment (SCT, 193–113 K or - 80°C to -160 °C)
(3) Deep Cryogenic Treatment (DCT, 113–77 K or -160 °C to -196 °C)
Two different types of cryogenic solutions used for the treatment of materials:
(1) Liquid Nitrogen (-196 °C)
(2) Liquid Helium(-269 °C)
Liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic liquid. At atmospheric pressure, it boils at −196
°C. When insulated in special containers called Dewar flasks, it can also be
transported. Liquid nitrogen is generally used as it is cheaper than liquid helium
and can be available easily.
 CRYOGENIC PROCESS
• Cryogenic Process Consist four stages, that involves:

1) Austenitization: Heating from room temperature to its austenitizing

temperature (around 1100 °C), at an extremely slow rate ranging from 0.5 to
1.5°C /min

2) Cooling: Direct cooling from austenitizing temperature to -196 °C at the rate of

1.5 to 2 °C. It is also called as quenching.

3) Soaking: For a period of time ranging from 24 to 36 hours depends upon

which material is to be treated

4) Heating: From -196 °C to room temperature at the rate of 0.5 to 1°C /min

5) Tempering: Reheating the metal at predetermined temperatures which are

lower than the transformational temperature (around 150 °C ) to obtain different
combinations of mechanical properties in the material.
 CRYOGENIC TREATMENT ADVANDAGES:

• Increases abrasive wear resistance,

• Increases tensile strength, toughness and stability,
• Decreases residual stresses,
• Effective Micro Structural changes.
• Decreases brittleness,
• The result is a larger contact surface area that reduces friction, heat and
wear
• Increases durability or wear life,
 APPLICATION OF CRYOGENIC
• Plastic industry
• Automobile components industry
• Metal working industry
 Testing
• Wear test
• Hardness test
 Knoop hardness
• The Micro hardness test method, according to ASTM E-384, specifies a
range of loads using a diamond indenter to make an indentation that is
measured and converted to a hardness value. There are two types of
micro hardness indenters, a square base pyramid shaped diamond used
in a Vickers tester and a narrow rhombus shaped indenter for a Knoop
tester.
• Typically, loads are very light, ranging from a few grams to one or several
kilograms. The term micro hardness refers to static indentations made
with loads not exceeding 1 kgf. The procedure for testing is very similar
to that of the standard Vickers hardness test, except that it is done on a
microscopic scale with higher precision instruments. Precision
microscopes used to measure the indentations, have a magnification of
approximately X500, and measure an accuracy of +0.5 micrometers
Knoop tester
 WEAR TEST

• Surface engineering point of view, wear test is carried out to evaluate the
potential of using a certain surface engineering technology to reduce
wear for a specific application, and to investigate the effect of treatment
conditions (processing parameters) on the wear performance, so that
optimized surface treatment conditions can be realized. In a pin-on-disc
wear tester, a pin is loaded against a flat rotating disc specimen such that
a circular wear path is described by the machine. The machine can be
used to evaluate wear and friction properties of materials under pure
sliding conditions.
• Either disc or pin can serve as specimen, while the other as counter face.
Pin with various geometry can be used. A convenient way is to use ball of
commercially available materials such as bearing steel, tungsten carbide
or alumina (Al2O3) as counter face, so that the name of ball-on-disc is
used.
PIN ON DISC WEAR TESTER
 Application
• Used in Automobile fields
Comparison of conventional chain sprocket vs cryogenic treated chain sprocket

conventional chain sprocket cryogenic treated chain sprocket

• Wear is high • Less wear

• Brittleness • Less brittleness
• Low hardness • High hardness
 RESULT
• To improve the wear strength
• To improve the hardness
• To improve the life of chain sprocket
 Reference
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properties of tool steels through combination of deep-cryogenic treatment
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deep cryogenic treatment that affect the properties of tool steels, Journal
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doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2010.07.007.
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mechanical properties of 4340 steel, Journal of Materials Processing
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• [4] M. Dhananchezian, M. Pradeep Kumar, Cryogenic turning of the Ti–6Al–
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