Heat treatment (metallurgy)

Article By:

Averbach, Benjamin L. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Last reviewed:August 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.311200

Show previous versions

• Heat treatment (metallurgy), published June 2014:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

A procedure of heating and cooling a metal or alloy without melting. The heating and cooling sequence may involve temperatures above, below, and at the ambient. Controlled heating and cooling rates, and a variety of furnace atmospheres and heating media may be used (Fig. 1). Plastic deformation may be included in the sequence of heating and cooling steps, thus defining a thermomechanical treatment. Typical objectives of heat treatments are hardening, strengthening, softening, improved formability, improved machinability, stress relief, and improved dimensional stability. Heat treatments are often categorized with special names, such as annealing, normalizing, stress relief anneals, process anneals, hardening, tempering, austempering, martempering, intercritical annealing, carburizing, nitriding, solution anneal, aging, precipitation hardening, and thermomechanical treatment. See also: Alloy; Metal

The content above is only an excerpt.