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Quenching and Tempering
Quenching and Tempering
In a general sense, quenching is a form of heat treatment performed on various types of steel. Although there is a special heat treatment cycle for each steel type, the thermal refining heat treatment process generally involves heating carbon steel for mechanical structures with a greater than 0.3% carbon content together with alloy steel until they reach the austenite region of around 850 degrees Celsius. Then, they are rapidly cooled by water or oil which transforms them into a martensite structure.
Tempering is a heat treatment used to give toughness to steel that has been hardened through quenching. From a martensite structure, the steel is reheated to between 550 and 650 degrees Celsius. Cooling is then performed after the structure retains this temperature for a certain predetermined period of time.
Quenching and tempering heat treatment is used to adjust the mechanical properties of the steel, with the entire series of processes referred to as thermal refining heat treatment.
(Although the hardness of steel will increase by quenching alone, tempering is generally performed to achieve a greater resilience since toughness will decline as a result of quenching.)
The ONEX Advantage
ONEX adjusts the atmosphere of furnaces using hydrocarbon gas, making it possible to perform quenching for a wide range of steel types to match their carbon content (S35C, SCM440, S55C, etc).
In addition, we are fully capable of treating everything from small components between several tens of grams all the way to oversized parts over 1,000 kilograms. We are also able to provide low-strain heat treatment through treatments that ascertain the speed of cooling.
We have large-scale water quenching equipment on site, enabling us to provide treatments of difficult to harden materials as well.