When steel is raised in temperature and held at that constant temperature in which the austenite state is achieved in the steel, there is a strong influence on the grain size and, consequently, there will be the problem of distortion occurring.

The subject of soft spots on nitride-treated components is often a very misunderstood subject.

As discussed last time, it can be seen that the procedure will clean up most of the steels’ impurities (certainly as far as gas is concerned). Sometimes sulfur is removed (or reduced) by the vacuum degas method.

Vacuum degassing is a procedure that is used to improve the internal cleanliness of steel after the initial melt has occurred.

The electric-arc furnace is as its name implies – an electric arc.

The Basic Oxygen FurnaceThis type of steelmaking furnace is sometimes referred to as a BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace), and it is one of the principle methods for making steel.BOF furnaces

An early method of making steel was to use what is known as the open-hearth furnace.

We deal with steel on almost a daily basis. If we are not using steel in our travel (to work and home), it’s what we work with daily in the heat-treatment shop.

The results of hardness testing are what will determine the success of the heat-treatment procedure and the materials’ response to that heat treatment.

Tempered Martensite EmbrittlementTempered martensite embrittlement is also known as TME. The root causes of TME are the topic of ongoing research. This phenomenon will occur in low-alloy/medium-carbon steels and will