ENGD2007: Strength of Materials

CES Assignment 3: Effect of Tempering Temperature on

Strength of Steel

Name: Nizamuddin Patel

Date: 15/11/2016

Instructions

1. Using the CES package, find the average values of tensile strength, Young’s modulus and ductility of 1040 carbon
steel after quenching and then tempering at various temperatures, listed in the table on the next page. Complete
the table and graphs, and then answer the questions in the following page.
2. This work counts towards 10% of CW in Term 1.
3 Submit this logsheet via the Blackboard by 10.00 pm, next week Thursday.

Learning outcomes

1) Understanding hardening and tempering heat treatment process

2) Understanding the effect of tempering on properties of steels

Introduction

This assignment involves a virtual experiment to find out the effect of tempering temperature on the properties
of a hardened (quenched) steel. With the help of CES, you can find the properties of the steel after tempering
at various temperatures, and then plot the properties against tempering temperature. The hardening and
tempering processes of steels are briefly described below.

Hardening of steels: heat the steel to a high temperature (800-1000oC), soak for a period of time, then cool the
steel rapidly by quenching in water or other cooling media, producing a hard structure (called martensite) with
significantly increased strength, but reduced ductility and toughness.

Tempering of steels: After quench-hardening, steels are always tempered by heating to a temperature between
160oC and 650oC for a couple of hours to achieve the required strength and to improve ductility and toughness.
In the as-quenched state, the steel is hard but is also very brittle, and thus has very limited engineering
application. The quenched steel must be tempered to make it tougher and more suitable for real applications.

Please Turn Over …

1
Find tensile strength, Young’s modulus and ductility of 1040 steel, water quenched and then tempered at
various temperatures, as listed in the following table. Calculate the averages, and complete the following
table.

AISI 1040 steel, Water quenched

Tempering Temperature (oC) Tensile Strength Young’s Modulus (GPa) Ductility

(MPa) (Elongation)
897.5 212 0.16
205

892.5 212 0.18

31 5

840 212 0.21

425

780 212 0.23

540

670 212 0.28

650

Now, plot Tensile Strength against Tempering Temperature for the steel in the graph below. Do the same for
Young’s modulus in the second graph, and ductility in the third graph.

Tempering Temperature against Tensile Strength for AISI

1040 Steel Water Quenched
1000
900
800
Tensile Strength (MPa)

700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
o
Tempering Temperature ( C)

2
 Tempering Temperature against Youngs Modulus for AISI
1040 Steel Water Quenched
300

250
Youngs Modulus (GPa)

200

150

100

50

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
o
Tempering Temperature ( C)

Tempering Temperature against Ductility for AISI 1040 Steel

Water Quenched
0.3

0.25

0.2
Ductility

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Tempering Temperature (oC)

3
Carefully examine the above completed table and graphs, and attempt the following questions:

1. How does tempering temperature affect the tensile strength, Young’s modulus, and ductility of
quenched steels?

As seen by the data on the table as well as the graphs, the tempering temperature is proportional to
tensile strength and ductility but not young’s modulus. The tensile strength of the sample decreases as
the tempering temperature increases.

When looking at the first graph, the tensile strength experiences a difference of 227.5 MPa and
therefore a drop of 25.35% from 205 oC to 650 oC.
The ductility of the samples however experiences an increase of 0.12 and therefore a percentage
increase of 75%. The young’s modulus is unaffected as tempering does not affect the point of elasticity
for the material.

2. What structure is produced in steel after quenching?

A martensite structure is produced after quenching steel only if the cooling rate is above the critical
rate. Otherwise the steel will go back to a ferrite state.

Martensite is a hard and very brittle solid solution of carbon in iron that is the main constituent of
hardened steel 1

3. Why can steel be hardened by rapid cooling (quenching)?

Steel contains carbon content which if quenched, the carbon content stays trapped within the steel,
the carbon does not have enough time to escape the ferrite and therefore providing a martensite
structure (very hard and strong).

The carbon atoms trapped within the spaces between the martensite and iron atoms are what causes
the hardness within the material. This causes the steel to become brittle

4. Why is tempering always required after quenching?

The martensite structure that is produced after quenching is hard and very brittle. Tempering is always
required after quenching as it increases the toughness and ductility of the structure. This increase in
toughness is gained by reducing its hardness. Tempering also helps reduce residual stress.

5. If the required tensile strength for a particular application is 800 MPa, at what temperature should
the quenched AISI 1040 steel be tempered?

The steel should be tempered at 500 oC as seen by the ‘tensile strength against tempering
temperature’ graph.

6. The stiffness of steels can be altered by heat treatment.

1
"Google". Google.co.uk. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.

4
 (a) True, or
(b) False
7. If the AISI 1040 steel were accidentally hardened before machining, what would you do to soften it
such that machining becomes feasible?

A way softening hardened steel is by a process called normalisation. Normalisation is a heat treatment
process that relieves stress on steel; this improves ductility and toughness in steels (and ferrous alloys)
that have been hardened as it forms a uniform fine grained structure. Annealing could also be a
process as this softens steels and increases their ductility. Annealing reduces the number of dislocation
present in a metal while making it more ductile, the metal undergoes heating above the critical point
and slow cooling. Both normalisation (a type of annealing) and annealing can take place with the AISI
1040 steel but normalisation is specific to ferrous alloys and does not decrease the ductility by a great
deal, therefore annealing would be best as it increases the ductility of the metal enough to be machine
feasible.

8. Is it industrially feasible to quench-harden the AISI 1020 steel? Explain why.

No, it is not possible to quench-harden AISI 1020 steel as the carbon content of this steel is too low to
make quenching effective. The low carbon will have a low hardening effect and a high critical cooling
rate, which will not be recommended as it will be costly to harden.

The carbon content needed to make quenching an improvement of steel (in terms of hardness) are to
be above 0.40% and AISI 1020 steel contains a carbon content of 0.20%. The carbon content in steel is
directly proportional to its strength. So if a steel with a high carbon content to begin with was to by
quenched it would be better (in terms of hardness) as it provides higher strength than AISI 1020 steel
without any type of hardening.

9. A plain carbon steel having a carbon content of about 1.00%. How do you designate it by using the
AISI code? (show your working)

The correct AISI code for this specification is AISI 10100.

If rounded, then the carbon content would be about 1.00%. AISI code, the first two digits tell us of the
alloys and 10XX means it is plain carbon steel. The last three digits XX100 tell us about the carbon
content. You can expand the code to 5 digits