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How Beneficial Heat Treatment is to Metals

There are some of the materials that may need to be altered in their structure during the processes of manufacturing. The one method that has been used for some time now for the sake of altering a metal’s physical properties as such allowing them to be used in a wide range of industries is heat treatments. The particular change in the metal’s physical properties is basically achieved by use of some controlled heating and cooling procedures.

In a general sense, the heat treatments vary as per the metal type and as well are influenced by the particular physical properties so desired for the functionality of the parts. Strength often being the core need, it is as such important to ensure that the correct heat treatment procedures are followed to ensure that this is achieved.

Heat treatments, apart from helping alter a metal’s physical properties can as well be of great help in some other manufacturing processes. Some of the advantages of metal heat treatments are such as the fact that it relieves stresses and as such making the parts easier to work on and as well makes the material stronger. Alongside this is the fact that this as well makes the material a lot more resistant to wear and tear as a result of the fact that the wear and tear resistance characteristics will be added to them, and as well the material will have been made a lot more ductile or flexible. One of the materials that sees such a benefit from the heat treatment technologies is steel, particularly for the manufacturing processes such as hot forming and welding, where there is often the hig build up of stresses. Heat treatments are of varied kinds and some are as we have mentioned below.

The first kind is annealing and solution annealing. Annealing is so effective and an ideal method more so looking at the fact that it makes the grain structure refined, making it more uniform and so easy to work with. Solution annealing particularly helps achieve corrosion resistance and better ductility.

Talking of the other methods of metal heat treatments, hardening and tempering is the other. For the hardening as a method for heat treatment, this is often a method that sees the heating of the steel material one that has some share of composition of carbon range in them, and is always heated to such high temperatures as high as 900 degrees and then this is quickly quenched. For tempering, the material can then be subjected to another heating cycle which then introduces ductility to the part.