Carbon Steels: Microstructure, Heat

Treatment and Mechanical Properties

Uses of Steel
Steel is one of the most used engineering
materials. It is used in different forms.
 Beams: for building support structures, train railroads, and reinforcing
rods in concrete
 Plates for ship construction;
 Tubes for boilers in power generating plants, car radiators, and oil and gas
pipelines
 Sheet metal for cars, washing machines,
 Wires for elevator cables
 Cutting Tools : special steels are used for cutting tools (hacksaw, blades,
drill bits, knives) and for
 Wear resistant application such as ball bearings.
Reasons For Wide Application
There are two main reasons for the popular use of
steels:
(1) Steel is abundant in the earth’s crust in the form of Fe2O3
and require little energy to convert it to Fe which makes
its production inexpensive
(2) It can be made to exhibit a great variety of
microstructures and thus a wide range of mechanical
properties.

The microstructure that develops in carbon steels depends on

both
(1) Carbon content and
(2) Thermal history or heat treatment
Fe-Fe3C Phase Diagram
Fe-Fe3C Phase Diagram
 Important Phases
 Ferrite (α- Iron)
 Austenite (γ-Iron)
 Cementite (Fe3C)
Ferrite (α- Iron)
 It is BCC.
 Stable up to 912 C.
 It can dissolve up to 0.02 % Carbon.
 It is soft.
 It is ferromagnetic below 770 C.
Austenite (γ-Iron)
 It is FCC
 Stable between 912 C
 It can dissolve up to 2 % Carbon
 It is soft
 It is non ferromagnetic
Cementite (Fe3C)
 Complex crystal Structure (Orthorhombic)
 Very hard and brittle.
 Ceramic structure.
Types of Carbon Steels
Depending on the carbon content, carbon steels
can be divided into three categories:

Eutectoid steels (contain exactly 0.76%C)

Hypoeutectoid steels (%C < 0.76)

Hypereutectoid steels (%C> 0.76)

Types of Carbon Steels
 The microstructure that develops when a eutectoid
steel (0.76% C) is slowly cooled from the austenite
region to below 727C consists of alternating layers
of α and cementite. This structure is called Pearlite.
 For hypoeutectoid steels (%C < 0.76) the
microstructure consists of pearlite surrounded by
pro-eutectoid α
 while hypereutectoid steels (%C> 0.76) are
composed of pearlite surrounded by cementite.
 α + Fe3C
Pearlite =
Ferrite + Cementite
Microstructure and Mechanical Properties

 The hardness of carbon steels increases with

increasing the carbon content due to increases
in the hard phase, cementite .
0.2% Carbon
0.4% Carbon
0.8% Carbon
1% Carbon
Heat Treatments of Steels (Non-Equilibrium)
 Annealing

 Normalizing

 Quenching

 Tempering
1) Annealing
1. Heat to above Upper Critical Temperature, at which
point the structure is all Austenite
2. Cool very slowly in the furnace.
3. Structure will now be large-grained coarse
pearlite.
4. Used to improve the properties of cast and forged
steels prior to machining.

Furnace Cooling
2) Normalising
1. Heat to Upper Critical Temperature, at which point
the structure is all Austenite.
2. Cool slowly in air.
3. Structure will now be fine pearlite.
4. Used to restore the ductility of cold or hot worked
materials whilst retaining other properties.

Air Cooling
Annealing and Normalizing

Coarse Pearlite Fine Pearlite

3) Quenching
 Quenching a steel, is cooling it rapidly from a
temperature above the transformation
temperature.
Quenching Media
Four commonly used quenching media:
 Brine – fastest cooling rate (Water + Salt)
 Water – moderate cooling rate
 Oil – slowest cooling rate
 Gas – used in automatic furnaces, usually
liquid nitrogen, can be very fast cooling.

Too rapid cooling can cause cracking in complex

and heavy sections.
 Martensite
Only formed by very rapid cooling from the
austenitic structure.
 Needs to be above the Critical Cooling Rate.
 BCT Structure.

The needle-like structure

 4) Tempering
 The brittleness of martensite makes hardened
steels unsuitable for most applications.
 This requires the steel to be tempered by re-
heating to a lower temperature to reduce the
hardness and improve the toughness. This
treatment converts some of the martensite to
another structure called Tempered Martensite.
Tempered Martensite
Effect of Tempering Temperature
Effect of Tempering Time.
Thank You