Abstract
In this study ASTM A-36 (mild steel) is selected as specimen for testing various mechanical properties and microstructure change. The effects of heat treatment on the mechanical properties and microstructure characteristics change of selected specimen are analyzed. Annealing, hardening and tempering are the most important heat treatment processes often used to change mechanical properties of engineering materials. The purpose of heat treating is to analyze the mechanical properties of the steel, usually ductility, hardness, Yield strength, tensile strength and impact resistance. The heat treatment develops hardness, softness, and improves the mechanical properties such as tensile strength, yield strength, ductility, corrosion resistance and creep rupture. These processes also help to improve machining effect, and make them versatile. The mechanical properties can easily be modified by heat treating to suit a particular design purpose. In the present study, selected samples are heat-treated at certain temperature above the austenitic region and quenched in order to investigate the effect on the mechanical properties microstructure of the mild steel. The changes in mechanical behavior and microstructure as compared with unquenched samples are explained in terms of changes in tensile strength. Results showed that the mechanical properties of mild steel can be changed and improved by various heat treatments for a particular application.
Highlights
The subject of mechanical testing of materials is an important aspect of engineering practice
Heat treatment is defined as an operation or combination of operations involving heating and cooling of a metal or alloy for this case involving the mild steel in the solid state in such ways as to produce certain microstructure and desired mechanical properties
It can be said that mechanical properties depends largely upon the various form of heat treatment operations and cooling rate
Summary
The subject of mechanical testing of materials is an important aspect of engineering practice. Annealing, normalizing, hardening and tempering are the most important heat treatments often used to modify the microstructure and mechanical properties of engineering materials steels. Annealing is defined as a heat treatment that consists of heating to and holding at a suitable temperature followed by cooling at an appropriate rate, most frequently applied in order to soften iron or steel materials and refines its grains due to ferrite-pearlite microstructure; it is used where elongations and appreciable level of tensile strength are required in engineering materials. The material is heated to the austenitic temperature range and this is followed by air cooling This treatment is usually carried out to obtain a mainly pearlite matrix, which results into strength and hardness higher than in as received condition. It is used to remove undesirable free carbide present in the as-received sample [1]
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