Heat Treatment 8

3- Stress Relief Annealing
1- In the heat treatment of metals, quenching or

rapid cooling is the cause of the greatest residual
stresses, then, heating the steel to temperature range
between (600 – 650)°C ,
2- soaking for few hours constantly, followed by a slow
cooling down in still air.
3- Purpose : Reduce or remove the internal stresses
produced in the metal during manufacturing processes
causing distortions due to plastic deformation, non-uniform
cooling, phase transformation
4- Examples for steels need stress relief annealing : Steel materials in
the form of large steel castings, welded steel structures or cold
formed parts.
.
Stress Relief Annealing
 Due to various processes like quenching (differential cooling of
surface and interior), machining, phase transformations (like
martensitic transformation), welding, etc. the residual stresses develop
in the sample. Residual stress can lead to undesirable effects like
warpage of the component.
 The annealing is carried out just below A1 , wherein ‘recovery*’
processes are active.
Residual stresses → Heat below A1 → RecoveryAnnihilation of dislocations,
polygonization
910C
Differential cooling
723C
Machining and cold working Stress Relief Annealing A1
Martensite formation

T
Welding
Wt% C
0.8 %
Causes of Residual Stresses
1. Thermal factors (e.g., thermal stresses caused by
temperature gradients within the work piece during
heating or cooling)
2. Mechanical factors (e.g., cold-working)
3. Metallurgical factors (e.g., transformation of the
microstructure)
And To activate plastic deformations, the local residual

stresses must be above the yield strength of the material.
Soaking time also has an influence on the effect of stress-
relief annealing
How to Remove Residual Stresses?
• R.S. can be reduced only by a plastic deformation in
the microstructure.
• This requires that the yield strength of the material
be lowered below the value of the residual stresses.
• The more the yield strength is lowered, the greater
the plastic deformation and correspondingly the
greater the possibility or reducing the residual
stresses
• The yield strength and the ultimate tensile strength
of the steel both decrease with increasing
temperature
4- Spheroidise annealing
• The process is limited to steels in excess of 0.5% C and consists of
heating to temperature about A1 (727°C). At this temperature any
cold worked ferrite will recrystallise and the iron carbide present in
pearlite will form as spheroids or “ball up”. As a result of change
of carbides shape the strength and hardness are reduced.
• Pearlite is heated to just below the eutectoid temperature, and left
for an extended time, the pearlite layers break down, and spherical
clumps of cementite are found.
• To remove coarse pearlite and making machining process easy .
• It forms spherodite structure of maximum soft and ductility easy
to machining and deforming. The main purpose of the treatment is
to increase the ductility and improve their machinability
of the sample.
Spheroidization Annealing
 Like stress relief annealing the treatment is done just below A1.
 Long time heating leads cementite plates to form cementite spheroids.
The driving force for this (microstructural) transformation is the
reduction in interfacial energy.
910C Acm
A3
723C
Spheroidization A1

T
Wt% C
0.8 %
Spheroidizing
Advantage
• To soften steels
• To increase ductility and toughness
• To improve machinablity and formability
• To reduce hardness ,strength , and wear resistance
5) Isothermal Annealing
It involves four steps:
a) Heating the steel material above the upper critical temperature.
This converts the structure rapidly into austenite (Ɣ) structure.
b) Cooling to a temperature below the lower critical temperature of
around 600 to 700 C. This cooling is done by means of forced
cooling.
c) Keeping the temperature constant for sufficient period of time
(soaking) for completion the transformation with homogenous
structure in the steel material before cooling.
d) Cooling the homogeneous steel structure to room temperature in
air.
This process is usually employed for low and high carbon and
some of the alloy steels to improve their machinability.
B- Annealing of Casting
1- Heating the castings above the critical eutectoid
temperature for a length of time consistent with the cross
section size, then, cooling them slowly to promote a uniform
microstructure composed primarily of ferrite (α) and coarse
Pearlite (ɣ).
2- Annealing softens the cast iron by slow-cooling the
austenitic matrix, creating a ferritic microstructure (α).
3- Purpose: to relieve residual stresses if the slow cooling is
continued to a low enough temperature creating products
with maximum ductility, uniform properties, and improved
machinability.
B- Annealing of Casting
Objective:
Iron casting can retain residual stresses and structural
variations after cooling during producing the complex
shapes. The structural variation can cause distortion
and non-uniform mechanical properties. To reduce
this, full annealing is needed to improve machinability
and also minimize the risk of distortions during any
subsequent hardening or machining processes. Also,
full annealing can relieve residual stresses.
There are three types of annealing (Casting):
(high, medium and low)
High-temperature annealing, a casting is heated above the critical

range to a temperature at which primary carbides and free cementite
decompose to ferrite and graphite. If the casting is cooled slowly to
below the critical range, a ferritic structure is formed and minimum
hardness is obtained.
Medium-temperature annealing is used if massive carbides are absent.
In this process, a casting is heated to just above the critical range, then
slow-cooled.
Low temperature annealing, or ferritizing, heats a casting to just
below the critical range, followed by slow-cooling. This is meant to
convert pearlitic carbides, in the absence of free cementite,
to ferrite and graphite.
The Heat Treat Thermal Cycles Processes

Heat Treatment 8

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3- Stress Relief Annealing

1- In the heat treatment of metals, quenching or

And To activate plastic deformations, the local residual

High-temperature annealing, a casting is heated above the critical

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