Impact of the Heat Treatment Process on the Properties of Stainless Steel Material

Abstract

Although new materials have been discovered with light weight and good properties, stainless steel is the most commonly used materials in industries. The wide usage of stainless steel is due to availability, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. However, research studies are still continued to improve steel properties. One of the method is thermal treatment.  Heat treatment compromise many benefit to martensite formation. Heat treatment can disclose a good mixture of ductility and toughness. The impact of heat treatment at holding time and temperature of material properties of stainless steel was examined in this paper. Samples have been subjected to different temperatures and holding times during the heat treatment. Microstructure, tensile test, hardness test, and roughness test have been conducted. There was a significant improvement of tensile properties of when it was heated to 1100°C to holding time of 10 minutes leading to elongation is 12.8%, the tensile stress reached 449 MPa and the yield stress 210 MPa. Moreover, the hardness of stainless steel material reached up to 47.24 HRC when it was heated to 660°C for 30 minutes. It is clear the ductility of material increases with the increased the holding time of heat treatment.  Also, the roughness was increased with the tempering. 

Keywords- heat treatment; mechanical properties; microstructure; quenching, and steel materials.