Cooling And Heating Metals

Annealing is frequently used to soften metals including iron steel copper brass and silver.

Cooling and heating metals. The hardening process increases the hardness and strength of metal but also increases its brittleness. My clients have also been pleased with the. Cooling for metal fabrication delivering the temperature control capabilities needed to ensure the success of metal fabrication many processing steps apply heat to a workpiece. Heat treatment is the process of heating and cooling metals to change their microstructure and to bring out the physical and mechanical characteristics that make metals more desirable.

Most steels must be cooled rapidly to harden them. The temperatures metals are heated to and the rate of cooling after heat treatment can significantly change metal s properties. We can use the same idea to heat up steel in an electric arc furnace. Annealing alters the physical and chemical properties of the metal to increase ductility and reduce hardness.

In our last blog post we covered the three stages of heat treatment that include heating the metal to a set temperature the heating stage keeping it at that temperature for a specific length of time the soaking stage and cooling it down to room temperature with a method that depends on the type of metal and the desired properties the cooling stage. In ferrous alloys annealing is usually accomplished by heating the metal beyond the upper critical temperature and then cooling very slowly resulting in the formation of pearlite. This can affect dimensions and material structure. When we pass an electric current through a piece of wire it gets hot.

The photograph shows how hot it gets. An electric arc furnace. In both pure metals and many alloys that cannot be heat treated annealing is used to remove the hardness caused by cold working.