Heat treatment is a very broad term and includes any heating and cooling operation or any sequence of two

or more such operations applied any material to modify its internal structure or to alter its physical mechanical or chemical properties.Usually it consists of heating the material to some specific temperature holding at this temperature for a definite period and cooling to room temperature or below it with a definite rate.

The objectives of heat treatment are:1.To increase hardness,wear,abrasion resistance and cutting ability of steels. 2.To decrease or increase grain size. 3.To increase controlled residual stresses i.e compressive stresses to increase fatigue life of components. 4.To stabilize steel so that it does not change its dimensions with time.(used for precision gauges and other instruments). 5.To eliminate gases primarily hydrogen that cause embrittlement of steel surface. 6.To adjust various properties like ductility,abrasion resistance,tensile strength,electric and magnetic properties etc. 7.To resoften steel after it has been hardened by heat treatment or cold working.

8.To change the composition of the surface by diffusion of C,N,Si etc so as to increase wear resistance,fatigue life or corrosion resistance.
9.To produce special microstructures to increase machinability or corrosion

resistance.

Heating of the component must be uniform and quick.Uniform heating is necessary to reduce distortions and cracking of the components due to thermal shock.Fast heating reduces the time of heat treatment and also helps in obtaining a fine grain size.If the heat treatment temperature is above 850 C decarburization and oxidation should be minimised.The heating of the component can be done in any one of the following mediums:1.AIR-Air heating is non-uniform and slow.At low temperatures of heat treatment such as that used in tempering of hardened steels.microstructural variations are likely to develop unless the tempering time is long.Also above 850 C appreciable oxidation occurs as well as decarburisation.However this can be prevented by one of the following techniques:a)By using controlled atmosphere such as inert gas or slightly carburising gas in the furnace. b)By wrapping the component in stainless steel foil. c)By covering the component with cast iron chips.

d)By applying a thick coating of boric acid on the component(Several coats of boric acid should be applied on warm component at around 200 C).
e)By applying some antiscaling compound on the component surface. 2.OIL-It gives uniform and rapid heating but they cannot be used above 200 C.Some oils like silicone oil can be used upto 275 C. 3.SALT BATHS-Salt baths can be used for temperatures above 200 C.They not only provide uniform and fast heating but also reduce decarburisation and oxidation of components.If the heat treatment is more than 900 C preheating of the component at some intermediate temperature is necessary to reduce distortions and cracking.During preheating of the components decarburisation or oxidation is not much and hence there is no need of using any measures to reduce the same.

Cooling can be done in any one of the following mediums like brine,oil fused salts,air etc.Each medium provides a different cooling rate and hence depending upon the requirements an appropriate quenching medium (quenchant) should be selected. Liquid cooling media removes heat from the component through the following stages:-

1.Vapour blanket stage- As soon as the component is quenched form a high temperature into the liquid medium the liquid gets vaporised and forms a vapour blanket around the component.This vapour blanket does not allow to extract the heat and reduces the cooling rate.
2.Vapour transport stage-After some time the vapour blanket breaks and the liquid comes in contact with the surface of the hot component and hence the cooling rate is highest during this stage. 3.Liquid cooling stage-This occurs when temperature of the component reaches the boiling point of the quenching medium.During this stage heat is removed by conduction and convection and hence cooling rate is the lowest. For hardening of steel it is necessary to cool them in some mediums with a rate exceeding the critical cooling rate of that steel from austenitic region for the transformation of austenite to martensite.During quenching the components does not crack as long as the structure is austenitic because it is soft,ductile and tough.However there is a heavy tendency of cracking at lower temperatures when the austenite starts transforming to martensite and it becomes severe at the end of transformation because martensite is a hard and brittle phase.Therefore quenching medium should be such that it extracts heat rapidly at high temperatures and slowly at low temperatures.So for this liquid medium with sufficiently high boiling point is ideal.Hot water is not suitable here because of slow cooling rate and delayed formation of vapour blanket.This causes heavy distortions and cracking of components.So hot waters should not be used for quenching of steel.However hot oil can be used for cooling rates lesser than that obtained by cold oil.

Purpose 1.To releive internal stresses developed due to rapid cooling of steels during the hardening process(austenite to martensite transformation) and due to volume changes occurring in the transformation to reduce brittleness. The high internal stressed produced due to hardening are likely to cause cracking of components if tempering operation is delayed.Therefore tempering should be immediately done after hardening.Also the components should not be ground before tempering because hardened and untempered components are extremely liable to stress cracking during grinding. 2.To reduce hardness and to increase ductility and toughness. 3.To eliminate retained austenite. Process:-The process consists of heating the hardened components for a temperature between 100 C to 700 C holding at this temperature for a specific period and cooling to room temperature usually in air.After hardening heat treatment steel contains martensite and retained austenite.In some of the steels like hypereutectoid steels and alloy steels carbides are also present.Martensite and austenite are not stable phases and try to transform to more stable phase during heating.Depending on the transformation tempering is classified into:1.Low temperature tempering(100 to 200 C)-Martensite decomposes and gives tempered martensite and transition carbide.The structure etches rapidly and appears dark with the common etching reagents used for steels like nital and picral.Hardness increases here but the brittleness decreased due to sharp decrease in the internal stresses. 2.Medium temperature tempering(200 C to 500C)-Retained austenite may get transformed to bainite or decompose and form carbides and martensite.The transformation occurs due to decrease in carbon content of austenite.The low carbon martensite and E-carbide transform to ferrite and cementite.Decrease in hardness is gradual upto 350 C and rapid thereafter to a minimum value of 500 C.The changes are accompanied by increase in toughness and ductility. 3.High temperature tempering(500 C to 700 C)-During this phase the cementite particles become coarse.Except this there is no other change in structure.The particles appear to be spheroidal in shape and are called as spherodite.