Heat Treatment Fundamentals and Processes

In Heat Treatment Fundamentals and Processes, you'll learn ...

• Important underlying concepts including metal crystal structures, defects, alloying, diffusion, and phase diagrams that are needed to understand heat treatment processes
• Various types of heat treatment processes and applications that are important in different industries
• The effect of heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties
• Relevant equipment used in heat treatment processes

Overview

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Credit: 4 PDH

Length: 54 pages

Heat treatment is the controlled process of heating to a specified temperature, holding that temperature for a specified duration, and then cooling at a specified rate. The process is typically performed on a metal or alloy to alter its microstructure and phase constituents and thus improve mechanical properties. It may also be performed to make an alloy softer in order to improve formability and facilitate hot or cold deformation (working) processes such as forging, drawing, extruding, etc. to make mill products. Heat treatment is commonly associated with steels but it is also commonly conducted on aluminum (Al) alloys, titanium (Ti) alloys, nickel-based superalloys, and other alloy systems. Heat treatment adds significant value that is estimated at ~$15B annually to manufactured metal products. It is a necessary part of the manufacturing process in order to produce parts for many industries including aircraft, aerospace, automotive, defense, semiconductors, power generation, petrochemical, and heavy equipment.

Engineers require knowledge of heat treatment and its effects during the design process in order to ensure that parts meet engineering specifications and design requirements. Since metals and alloys are used in many engineering applications this knowledge and understanding is useful for civil and structural engineers, mechanical engineers, materials and metallurgical engineers, chemical engineers, and electrical engineers.

In this course, the heat treatment fundamentals and processes of metals are presented. The course first reviews important underlying concepts including metal crystal structures, defects, alloying, diffusion, and phase diagrams that are needed to understand heat treatment processes. In the second part, the course provides an overview of different types of heat treatment processes and applications that are important in different industries including annealing processes, quench and tempering, case hardening processes, and precipitation hardening. The effect of heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties is examined in each section. The course also discusses relevant equipment for heat treatment processes. Examples are provided for important engineering alloys including steel, copper, aluminum, titanium, and others throughout the discussion.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify the types of metal crystal structures found in important engineering alloys.
• Describe four types of point defects that are important to heat treatment processes.
• Explain the fundamental concepts of alloying and solid solutions relevant to heat treatment.
• Apply steady-state and non-steady-state diffusion concepts to example problems.
• Identify the components of an equilibrium alloy phase diagram.
• Interpret the iron-carbon phase diagram and identify important microstructures for heat treatment.
• Explain the principles and applications of annealing processes, including stress-relief annealing, full annealing, process annealing, spheroidizing, and normalizing.
• Describe the principles and applications of quench-and-temper heat treatment.
• Explain case-hardening processes, including carburizing, nitriding, flame hardening, and induction hardening, and identify example applications.
• Describe precipitation-hardening concepts and applications.
• Explain the effects of heat treatment processes on mechanical properties and microstructure.

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 20 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.