Heat Treatment Study Guide
Classifications of Iron and Steels
01 Who wrote the textbook?
• Paul Degarmo, [Link], Ronald A. Kohser.
02 What does ferrous mean?
• Of or containing Iron
03 Ferrous metals include:
• Wrought iron
• Cast iron
• Stainless steel
04 Wrought iron is no longer used in engineering because:
• It’s too expensive to manufacture
• Its fibrous structure makes it unreliable
05 The principle types of cast irons are:
• Gray
• White
• Ductile
06 Steel can be classified as:
• mild.
• medium.
• stainless.
• alloy.
• tool.
07 How much carbon is in a 1020 steel?
• 0.2%
08 The W prefix used with tool steels means:
• Water hardening
09 The three classes of stainless steel are:
• Matensitic
• Ferritic
• Ausenitic
10 Cast irons are classified by their:
• Hardness
• Tensile strength
11 Precipitation hardening stainless steels are:
• Capable of precipitating intermetallic compounds
12 Duplex stainless steels have:
• Approximately ½ ferrite and ½ autstenite
• Have no iron content
• Some molybdenum content
13 How would you decide if a steel with a European specification was suitable for an
application designed to North American specifications?
• Real the steel’s mill certificate
14 Where was the company ambica steels based?
• India
Heat Treatment
01 What is heat treatment?
• Thermal and metalworking processes used to alter the physical properties of a
material
02 Steels and cast irons are essentially alloys of?
• Iron and carbon
03 It addition to carbon what other four alloying elements are found in steels?
• Nickel
• Chromium
• Molybdenum
• Manganese
• Silicon
04 What is the difference between steel and cast iron? How does this affect their
mechanical properties?
• Cast iron is a high carbon content steel that has strong hardness and insulating
properties
05 Steels may be broadly classified into two types; what are they?
• Carbon steels
• Alloy steels
06 What causes temperature arrests in the cooling (or heating) of Iron?
• Phase transformations
07 What are the two allotropic (crystalline) forms found in Iron?
• BCC
• FCC
08 Draw the idealized cooling curve for iron (fully labelled).
09 What is γ iron?
• Gamma Iron
10 What is the Tensile Strength of Iron?
• 78300 psi
11 Considering diagram 3; what is occurring on the line ABC in steels containing less
than 2% C?
• It is nearing the eutectoid point so the melting point is decreasing
12 What is the structure of Cast Irons after solidification?
• BCC
13 What is the A1 line?
• Eutectoid reaction
14 What is the A1 transformation point? What is the resultant structure?
• 727 degrees C
• Ferrite and cementite (pearlite)
15 What is Hypereutectoid Steel?
• Steel that is below 0.83% carbon
16 What is the Critical Range?
• 723 to 910 degrees celcius
17 What are the Ac1, Ar1, Ac3, Ar3, Ae1, Acme points?
• Points at which a specific phase transformation happens
18 What are the mechanical properties of Pearlite?
• Toughness
• Strength
19 What happens to Austenite when it goes below the Ae1 temperature?
• It turns to pearlite
20 What is the product of the Ar” or Ms Transformation?
• Martensite
21 What does TTT stand for?
• Time, temperature, transformation
22 When does fine pearlite occur
• When the steel is heated and then held at a high temperature and then rapidly
cooled
23 When does bainite occur
• When the steel is heated then rapidly cooled to approximately 300 degrees then
held at that temperature
24 What cooling path is needed to obtain martensite
• A heating and then a rapid quenching avoiding the nose of the curve
25 What cooling process gives the hardest material
• Quenching
26 What is the effect of carbon content in the formation of martensite
• Higher carbon content generally promotes the formation of martensite
27 All heat treatment operations consist of subjecting a metal to a defenite time-
temperature cycle. What does this consist of?
28 Can austenite occur at room temperature?
• No it cannot
29 What is the frequently used rule that determines the soaking time in heat treatment?
• 1 hour per inch of thickness
30 Define full annealing
• Full annealing is annealing process applied to ferrous alloys
31 Define process annealing
• Process annealing is annealing done to reduce internal stresses in the ferrous alloy
32 Define spheroidizing
• Spheroidizing minimizes the development of stress concentrations
33 What is normalizing?
• Heating a material to high heat then allowing it to cool back to room temperature
by exposing it to room temperature air
34 How are steels hardened?
• Steels can be hardened using a variety of heat treatment processes like quenching.
35 What is tempering
• Tempering is the process of heat treating to increase toughness of iron based
alloys
36 What is the effect of Molybdenum on Temper Brittleness?
• It decreases the brittleness of the tempered ferrous alloy
37 What tempering time does good practice require?
• Up to 20 hours
38 Why is it necessary for a steel to be tempered promptly after hardening
• To relieve the stresses within the metal
39 What is double tempering? Why is it done?
• Heating, holding, and cooling twice. This increases the impact strength
