What is the quenching?
Quenching is a heat treatment method applied to increase the surface and core hardness of steel. This process is typically carried out in conjunction with annealing and tempering and improves the material’s mechanical properties, hardness, wear resistance, tensile strength, and fatigue life.
Steel is commonly a material with a body-centered cubic (bcc) structure as raw material. During the hardening process, the steel’s raw structure is held at specific temperatures and durations to transform into an austenitic structure. Austenite has a face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure and occupies a smaller volume than the body-centered cubic structure. After the annealing process, the material is rapidly cooled to return from the fcc structure to the bcc structure, forming martensite structure with over-saturated carbon residues. The martensite phase has a larger volume than unhardened steel at room temperature and possesses high hardness due to high internal stresses.
Quenching is the process of rapidly cooling the product using oil, gas, or other quenching media. The tempering process is applied to create the desired mechanical properties (hardness, toughness, etc.) of the material. Additionally, tempering helps reduce internal stresses, transform residual austenite, and stabilize martensite.
The hardening process performed in atmosphere-controlled furnaces protects the surfaces of the parts from oxidation, decarburization, and carburization. Such furnaces can reverse the processes of decarburization and carburization by controlling the carbon potential in the atmosphere.
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