Heat Treat Processes
This section contains a wealth of basic information on a wide range of processes affiliated with heat treatments and thermal processing. Bookmark this page for some handy talking points during those awkward cocktail parties when your guests ask you what you do for a living. Click a process below to learn more.
Aluminum (Aluminium) Heat Treating
Aluminum heat treating is a broad category encompassing several types of heat treating processes, most if not all of which are dictated by applicable specifications.
Annealing
Used for a variety of reasons — grain refinement, microstructural property changes and enhanced ductility to name a few — annealing is most frequently used to soften a part to improve its machinability.
Brazing
Brazing is not technically a heat treating process. Rather, it is a joining process, similar to soldering or welding, that uses a “filler metal” to join “base metal” components together.
Carburizing
Carburizing, a type of case hardening process, is commonly used throughout the heat treating industry.
Forging
Forging refers to a variety of thermal and mechanical processes that give a material a desired shape.
Foundry & Casting
Molten (liquid) metal is poured into a mold or form through a series of gates and risers to produce its intended shape.
Hardening
Hardening is a broad metallurgical category that is known by several names; through hardening, neutral hardening, direct hardening, furnace hardening, and austenitizing.
Hot Isostatic Pressing
Hot isostatic pressing (HIPing) is most commonly used in the medical and aerospace industries.
Induction Heating
Induction heating, an applied energy process, is a selective, noncontact heating method that can be performed in air on the shop floor as well as under a protective atmosphere or in a vacuum furnace.
Nitriding
Nitriding heat treatment is one of several surface hardening heat treat processes.
Nitrocarburizing
Nitrocarburizing is a case hardening process. Despite what the name might suggest, nitrocarburizing is not a form of carburizing.
Parts Cleaning
Parts cleaning refers to a variety of processes that occur before or after heat treating.
Quenching
Quenching is a critical step in virtually all heat treating processes.
Sintering & Powder Metallurgy
Sintering, which is a common process for parts used in the automotive, medical, and firearms industries, is a powder metallurgy process that bonds powder metal particles together to create structural integrity and strength.
Stress Relief (Stress Relieving)
Stress relief involves heating a metal to a relatively low temperature, holding at that temperature, and then slowly cooling to relieve internal stress produced from certain operations (e.g., rolling, forging, casting) and various manufacturing processes (e.g., machining, bending, shearing, sawing).
Titanium Heat Treating
As with steel, there are many different titanium alloys with unique properties and structures.
Tempering
Tempering is a term primarily applied to steels (plain carbon and alloy steels, stainless steels, and tool steels) and typically involves heating component parts to temperatures below their critical temperature and holding long enough to help improve the microstructure.
