Effect of interrupted cooling on retention of austenite and development of case hardness in a carburizing process
- Timken Co., Canton, OH (United States)
Conventional industrial practice is to heat product to be gas carburized into the single phase austenite region of the equilibrium phase diagram for introduction of carbon. On quenching of the carburized product, not all of the austenite is transformed; some of the austenite is retained. The extent of retained austenite is affected by several material and processing factors. One factor studied by prior investigators is the phenomenon of thermal stabilization of austenite. The phase transformations occurring during the cooling of high carbon steel specimens within controlled experiments were the subject of these prior investigations. An investigation into the interruption of cooling occurring during quenching of carburized product within an industrial gas carburizing process was conducted. It was found that an interruption in the cooling caused some of the austenite to become stabilized and resist transformation to martensite. A statistically significant reduction in the proportion of retained austenite and an increase in the range of resultant hardness was obtained by minimizing the interruption in cooling to ambient temperature.
- OSTI ID:
- 389732
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-951222--; ISBN 0-87170-561-3
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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