Steel parts after manufacture will not have desired properties like wear resistance, tensile strength and surface and core hardness. To attain these, heat-treatment processes like case hardening (CH) or through hardening (TH) were carried out in a sealed-quench furnace and a rotary furnace.

    The microstructure of the steel part influences the hardness. The required microstructure is fine tempered martensite (FTM), and the quench media has a very important role in achieving this. Using different grades of steels, the trials were carried out in Savsol Q001 oil and Polyquench-GN polymer. Finally, comparative trials were also carried out in order to determine the suitability of new quench media. In terms of time and energy savings, polymer was found to be a better quench media to get the required FTM microstructure, which gave the improved, desired properties.