• CONVENTIONAL ANNEALING( FULL ANNEALING):

PURPOSE: 1. To decrease internal stresses due to cold working, welding etc.,

PROCESS: Steel is heated to above A3 temperature for Hypoeutectoid steel and above A1 for hypereutectoid
steels by 30-500C, held at this temperature for ( 20 min per cm of the thickest section) a definite period of
time and slowly cooled to below A1 or room temperature, usually in a furnace. It is specially used for complex
shapes where even air cooling may cause warping or cracking of components.
• The property changes and structural changes occur through recovery,
recrystallization and grain growth
• Recovery: In this stage, no appreciable change in microstructure is observed. The grains remain
distorted, and hence mechanical properties such as strength, hardness and ductility do not change
appreciably and can be assumed to remain the same as that of cold worked metal. However, due to
heating, some imperfections like vacancies and interstitialcies existing in the slip bands may get
eliminated and dislocations of opposite sign may get annihilated. Also, some dislocations may undergo
rearrangement in the lattice. Polygonization has been observed i.e., dislocations of the same sign align
themselves into walls to farm small( low) angle sub-grain boundaries. This leads to pronounced
changes in internal stresses, electrical resistance, and corrosion resistance of the material.
• Recrystallization: old distorted grains are replaced by stress free, strain free, Equiaxed fine grains.
The microstructure at the end of recrystallization process is very much similar to the original structure
prior to cold working. Dislocation density gets reduced. All mechanical properties get changed and
become similar to that of original material. Internal stresses get reduced almost to the original level
with subsequent increase in corrosion resistance. Electrical resistance gets reduce to the original level.
• The minimum degree of cold work necessary for recrystallization to occur is called the critical degree
of cold work. This is of the order of 2-3% for most of the metals and alloys.
• The temperature at which a metal or alloy with a normal degree of cold work completely( i..e., 95% or
above) recrystallizes in a reasonable period( usually 1 hour) is called as the recrystallization
temperature of the metal.
• Grain growth( secondary recrystallization): Grain growth takes place, when a
completely recrystallized metal is heated to a higher temperature or kept for a
longer time at the annealing temperature. During grain growth, some grains grow
at the expense of the surrounding recrystallized grains. This occurs by rapid
migration of grain boundaries of a few of the primary recrystallized grains, to
result in the formation of a very large secondary grains. The driving force for the
secondary recrystallization is the decrease in free energy of the system mainly
due to reduction in grain boundary area, which accompanies with increase in
grain size. This type of grain growth, is not desirable, as it decreases the useful
properties. However, one of the useful application of this is in the growth of
single crystals.
TYPES OF ANNEALING
• SUBCRITICAL ANNEALING:
1. Stress relief annealing
2. Recrystallization annealing
3. Process annealing ( intermediate annealing)
• In subcritical annealing, cold worked steel is heated to some temperature below the Lower
critical temperature.
• Stress relief annealing: Cold worked steel is heated to a temperature between 500-5500 C i.e.,
below its recrystallization temperature(=6000C) . Held at this temperature for 1-2hr and cooled
to room temperature in air. Due to this internal stresses are relieved, without loss of strength
and hardness i.e., without change of microstructure. It reduces the risk of distortion on
machining, and also increases corrosion resistance. Since only low-C steels are cold worked, this
process is applicable to Hypoeutectoid steels containing less than 0.4%C.
• Recrystallization annealing: This is done in the temperature range between 625 to 6750C. The
cold worked ferrite recrystallizes and cementite tries to spheroidised during this annealing
process. Internal Stresses are eliminated, and steel becomes soft and ductile. Refinement in
grain size is possible by controlling the degree of cold work prior to annealing or by control of
annealing temperature and time.
• Process annealing: cold worked metal s heated to above its recrystallization temperature.
It results in formation of strain free Equiaxed grains. This is given to metals to soften them during
mechanical processing, so as to continue the cold working process without cracking of metals. It
may or may not involve full recrystallization of the cold worked metal. In principle, process
annealing and recrystallization annealing are same and both the processes involve
recrystallization and formation of new stress free Equiaxed grains from strained and distorted
cold worked grains.
• Isothermal annealing: Components are slightly fast cooled from usual austenitizing temperature
of conventional annealing to a constant temperature just below A1, held at this temperature for
sufficient period for the completion of transformation and then cooled to room temperature in air.
• PURPOSE: Chiefly used for Medium carbon, high carbon, and some of the alloy steels to improve
their machinability, due to formation of spheroidised structure.
• Compared to conventional annealing, isothermal annealing will
• Reduce the annealing time, especially for alloy steels, which need very slow cooling to obtain
required reduction in hardness with conventional annealing.
• Because of equalization of temperature, transformation occurs at the same time throughout
the cross section. This leads to more homogeneity ofstructure.
• It shows improved machinability, improved surface finish after machining and less warping
during subsequent hardening process.
• SPHEROIDIZE ANNEALING: Given to high carbon and air hardening alloy steels to soften them and
to increase machinability. The final microstructure consists of globules of cementite in the matrix
of ferrite.