Option 2 : Heating the work piece material below its recrystallization temperature, holding for some time and then furnace cooling.
Explanation:
Annealing:
- Annealing involves heating the steel to a suitable temperature, holding it at that temperature for some time, and then cooling it slowly.
- There are different methods of cooling.
- The main purpose of Annealing is to reduce the hardness of a material.
- Besides this, it is also used -
- To relieve the internal stress of a material
- To restore ductility to perform the further operation on the material
- To increase the machinability of the material
- To induce softness
There are the following processes in Annealing.
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Diffusion Annealing
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- In this process, hypo-eutectoid, eutectoid, and hyper-eutectoid steel are heated uniformly and the component is held at a temperature between 1000 °C – 1200 °C and then cooled very slowly in the furnace in order to remove the heterogeneity in the composition of heavy castings.
- During this, a coarse grain structure produced.
- A homogenous structure appears.
- To increase material properties, it goes through full annealing after diffusion annealing.
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Full Annealing
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- Full annealing consists of heating the steel component to about 50 °C – 70 °C above the critical temperature, holding it for a sufficient length of time, and cooling the same in the furnace.
- Adopted for steel casting and ingots.
- The coarse structure produced during solidification break down to a much smaller size.
- Machinability and ductility increases.
- Hardness is reduced.
- All structural imperfection gets removed.
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Spherodise Annealing
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- In this method heating can be done in three ways:
- Prolonged heating just below the lower critical temperature followed by relatively slow cooling
- Alternately heating and cooling the work-piece to just above and below the lower critical temperature.
- Short heating at a high temperature followed by relatively slow cooling.
- Conversion of hard lamellar or network carbides of high-carbon steels into globular or spherical shapes.
- Improve machinability and ductility.
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Process Annealing
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- This process involves heating of steel to a temperature just below the lower critical temperature (723 °C) of steel.
- Usually, cold worked steel has high hardness and low ductility making it difficult to work.
- Deformed grains in cold working get reoriented.
- Hardness is lowered and ductility also increases.
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