Heat treatment refers to a metal thermal processing process in which the chemical composition and structure of the surface or interior of the material are changed by heating, insulation and cooling in the solid state to obtain the desired properties.
Heat treatment characteristics
Metal heat treatment is one of the important processes in mechanical manufacturing. Compared with other processing technologies, heat treatment generally does not change the shape and overall chemical composition of the workpiece, but rather changes the microstructure inside the workpiece or the chemical composition on the surface of the workpiece to give or improve the performance of the workpiece. Its characteristic is to improve the intrinsic quality of the workpiece, which is generally not visible to the naked eye. In order to make the metal workpiece have the required mechanical properties, physical properties and chemical properties, in addition to the reasonable selection of materials and various forming processes, heat treatment processes are often indispensable.
Heat treatment process
Heat treatment process generally comprises three processes of heating, insulation and cooling, and sometimes has only two processes of heating and cooling. These processes are interconnected and cannot be interrupted.
Heat treatment process classification
Metal heat treatment processes can be roughly divided into three categories: bulk heat treatment, surface heat treatment and chemical heat treatment. According to the different heating media, heating temperature and cooling methods, each category can be divided into several different heat treatment processes. The same metal can obtain different structures and thus different properties by using different heat treatment processes.
Bulk heat treatment is a metal heat treatment process that heats the workpiece as a whole and then cools it at an appropriate rate to obtain the required metallographic structure to change its overall mechanical properties. There are four basic processes for bulk heat treatment of steel and iron: annealing, normalizing, quenching and tempering.
Surface heat treatment is a metal heat treatment process that only heats the surface of the workpiece to change its surface mechanical properties.
Chemical heat treatment is a metal heat treatment process that changes the chemical composition, structure and properties of the surface of the workpiece.
Jinhong is a parts manufacturer integrating sand casting and machining, and is committed to providing services to customers with decades of casting experience. Regarding heat treatment processes, Jinhong has multiple advanced heat treatment furnaces that can meet the different heat treatment needs of customers.
