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The term hardened steel is often used for a medium or high carbon steel that has been given heat treatment and then quenching followed by tempering. The quenching results in the formation of metastable martensite , the fraction of which is reduced to the desired amount during tempering.
Martensitic transformation, more commonly known as quenching and tempering, is a hardening mechanism specific for steel. The steel must be heated to a temperature where the iron phase changes from ferrite into austenite, i.e. changes crystal structure from BCC (body-centered cubic) to FCC (face-centered cubic). In austenitic form, steel can ...
Diagram of a cross section of a katana, showing the typical arrangement of the harder and softer zones. Differential hardening (also called differential quenching, selective quenching, selective hardening, or local hardening) is most commonly used in bladesmithing to increase the toughness of a blade while keeping very high hardness and strength at the edge.
Precipitation hardening, also called age hardening or particle hardening, is a heat treatment technique used to increase the yield strength of malleable materials, including most structural alloys of aluminium, magnesium, nickel, titanium, and some steels, stainless steels, and duplex stainless steel.
RHA is homogeneous because its structure and composition are uniform throughout its thickness. The opposite of homogeneous steel plate is cemented or face-hardened steel plate, where the face of the steel is composed differently from the substrate. The face of the steel, which starts as an RHA plate, is hardened by a heat-treatment process.
Surface carburizing, or case hardening, is one example of solid solution strengthening in which the density of solute carbon atoms is increased close to the surface of the steel, resulting in a gradient of carbon atoms throughout the material. This provides superior mechanical properties to the surface of the steel without having to use a ...
Steel can be softened to a very malleable state through annealing, or it can be hardened to a state as hard and brittle as glass by quenching. However, in its hardened state, steel is usually far too brittle, lacking the fracture toughness to be useful for most applications. Tempering is a method used to decrease the hardness, thereby ...
The steel is then quenched so that the austenite is transformed into martensite, and the ferrite remains on cooling. The steel is then subjected to a temper cycle to allow some level of marten-site decomposition. By controlling the amount of martensite in the steel, as well as the degree of temper, the strength level can be controlled.