Heat Treatment

Different heat treatments have significant effects on the microstructure and mechanical properties of a material. Heat treatment processes include annealing, normalizing, and quenching and tempering. In the lab, specimens are heated in the furnaces and given different heat treatments. The effects of each heat treatment are determined using diverse equipment in the lab: microstructure by the video microscope, hardness by the Rockwell hardness tester, and tensile tests (data for stress-strain curves) by the Instron Model 4400 load frames.