How to Heat Treat Machine Parts?

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. Steel is the most widely used material in the machinery industry. The microstructure of steel is complex and can be controlled by heat treatment. Therefore, the heat treatment of steel is the main content of metal heat treatment.

In addition, aluminum, copper, magnesium, titanium, etc., and their alloys can also change their mechanical, physical, and chemical properties through heat treatment to obtain different performance properties.

Heat treatment generally does not change the shape of the workpiece and the overall chemical composition, but by changing the internal microstructure of the workpiece, or changing the chemical composition of the surface of the workpiece, to give or improve the performance of the workpiece. Its characteristic is to improve the internal quality of the workpiece, which is generally not visible to the naked eye.

The role of heat treatment is to improve the mechanical properties of materials, eliminate residual stress and improve the machinability of metals. According to the different purposes of heat treatment, the heat treatment process can be divided into the following two categories: preliminary heat treatment and final heat treatment.

The purpose of the preliminary heat treatment is to improve the processing performance, eliminate internal stress and prepare a good metallographic structure for the final heat treatment. The heat treatment process includes annealing, normalizing, aging, quenching, and tempering, etc.

Annealing and normalizing are used for hot processed blanks. Carbon steel and alloy steel with a carbon content of more than 0.5% are often annealed in order to reduce their hardness and easy to cut; carbon steel and alloy steel with a carbon content of less than 0.5% are used to avoid sticking when the hardness is too low. Instead, normalizing is used.

Annealing and normalizing can still refine the grains and uniform structure, preparing for the subsequent heat treatment. Annealing and normalizing are often arranged after the blank is manufactured and before the rough machining.

The aging treatment is mainly used to eliminate the internal stress generated in blank manufacturing and machining.

In order to avoid excessive transportation workload, for parts with general precision, an aging treatment can be arranged before finishing. However, for parts with higher precision requirements (such as the box of a coordinate boring machine, etc.), two or several aging treatment procedures should be arranged. Simple parts are generally not subject to aging treatment.

In addition to castings, for some precision parts with poor rigidity (such as precision screws), in order to eliminate the internal stress generated during processing and stabilize the machining accuracy of the parts, multiple aging treatments are often arranged between rough machining and semi-finish machining. For some shaft parts processing, aging treatment must be arranged after the straightening process.

Quenching and tempering is the high-temperature tempering treatment after quenching. It can obtain a uniform and fine tempered sorbate structure to prepare for the reduction of deformation during the subsequent surface quenching and nitriding treatment. Therefore, quenching and tempering can also be used as preliminary heat treatment.

Due to the better comprehensive mechanical properties of the parts after quenching and tempering, some parts that do not require high hardness and wear resistance can also be used as the final heat-treatment process.

The purpose of the final heat treatment is to improve mechanical properties such as hardness, wear resistance, and strength.

Quenching includes surface quenching and overall quenching. Among them, surface quenching is widely used because of small deformation, oxidation, and decarburization, and surface quenching also has the advantages of high external strength and good wear resistance, while maintaining good internal toughness and strong impact resistance.

In order to improve the mechanical properties of surface hardened parts, heat treatment such as quenching and tempering or normalizing is often required as preliminary heat treatment.

Carburizing and quenching are suitable for low-carbon steel and low-alloy steel. First, increase the carbon content of the surface of the part. After quenching, the surface will obtain high hardness, while the core still maintains a certain strength and high toughness and plasticity.

Carburizing is divided into overall carburizing and partial carburizing. In the case of partial carburizing, anti-seepage measures (copper plating or anti-seepage material plating) should be taken for the non-carburized part. Since the carburizing and quenching deformation is large, and the carburizing depth is generally between 0.5-2mm, the carburizing process is generally arranged between semi-finishing and finishing.

When the non-carburized part of the partial carburized part adopts the process plan of removing the excess carburized layer after increasing the margin, the process of removing the excess carburized layer should be arranged after carburizing and before quenching.

Nitriding is a treatment method that allows nitrogen atoms to penetrate into the metal surface to obtain a layer of nitrogen-containing compounds. The nitriding layer can improve the hardness, wear resistance, fatigue strength, and corrosion resistance of the surface of the part.

As the nitriding treatment temperature is low, the deformation is small, and the nitriding layer is thin (generally no more than 0.6-0.7mm), the nitriding process should be arranged as far as possible. In order to reduce the deformation during nitriding, it is generally required after cutting. Perform stress-relieving high-temperature tempering.

The precision machine parts manufactured by ZHONGKEN adopt a good heat treatment process to ensure that they have a stable structure inside and on the surface. You can also search for related products on our website to learn about them.

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