Effect Of Carburizing On Hardness And Microstructure Of Low Carbon Steel

摘要

Due to rare formation of martensite in low carbon steel on quenching, it hardly responds to the hardening heat treatment processes like quenching and tempering. Thus, to improve the surface hardness and wear resistance of low carbon steel numerous casehardening processes like carburizing, nitriding, carbonitriding and cyaniding are generally used. Carburizing is the most common treatment among them in which the surface composition of the low carbon steel changes by diffusion of carbon and results in to hard outer case with good wear resistance. The current investigation mainly emphasizes on effect of carburizing treatment on the hardness and microstructure of low carbon steel. The low carbon steel of specific composition was carburized at different temperatures ranging from 800℃ to 900℃ for 2 and 5 hours. Then the resultant hardness values were measured to show the comparison. The microstructure of the low carbon steel was also analyzed before and after carburizing treatment.