• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.149-155
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• 2006

The effects of eight types of spheroidizing annealing conditions including annealing temperature, annealing time, cooling rate, and gas atmosphere in the annealing furnace on the microstructure were determined in SM45C steel which has been widely used for automotive parts. The well-developed spheroidized structure and minimum hardness were obtained when the steel was heat-treated 6 hours at $740^{\circ}C$, cooled to $710^{\circ}C$ at a cooling rate of $24^{\circ}C/h$, and then kept for 7 hours at the $710^{\circ}C$ followed by air cooling. In order to increase the productivity and to save the manufacturing cost, it is desirable to apply a faster cooling rate in the spheroidizing annealing. It was found that air cooling was the fastest cooling rate applicable to the SM45C steel. The steel heat treated in air showed the decarburized layer of about $110{\mu}m$ in thickness at the surface of the specimen, resulting in serious problems in the quality of the quenched product.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.270-279
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• 2006

The effects of eight types of spheroidizing annealing conditions including annealing temperature, annealing time, cooling rate, and furnace atmosphere on the microstructure and hardeness were determined in SCM440 steel which has been widely used for automotive parts. The well-spheroidized structure and minimum hardness were obtained when the steel was heat-treated at $770^{\circ}C$ for 6 hours, cooled to $720^{\circ}C$ at a cooling rate of $24^{\circ}C/h$, and then kept for 7 hours at the $720^{\circ}C$ followed by air cooling. In order to increase the productivity and to save the manufacturing cost, it is desirable to apply a faster cooling rate to the spheroidizing annealing. It was found that a cooling rate of $100^{\circ}C/hr$ was the fastest cooling rate applicable to the SCM440 steel among the four cooling rates used in this study. The microstructure consisted of ferrite and very fine spheroidized cementite when the steel was annealed for 13 hours at $720^{\circ}C$ below $A_{C1}$ temperature. This was caused by the short annealing time and the retarding effect of Cr and Mo on both the dissolution of pearlite to cementite and coarsening of spheroidized cementite. The steel heat treated in air showed the decarburized layer of about $125{\mu}m$ in thickness at the surface.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.126-131
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• 2013

In this study, effects of silicon addition on the spheroidizing annealing of hyper-eutectoid steel was investigated. Heat treatment at various temperatures in the ${\gamma}+{\theta}$ region was also conducted in order to systematically control the kinetics of undissolved cementite. It was found that small amount of Si addition could increase both $A_1$ and $A_{cm}$ transformation temperature by both the JMat Pro evaluation and dilatometric measurement. It was also revealed by the microstructural observation that the volume fraction of retained cementite during heat treatment increased with decreasing temperature as well as increasing Si content. Based on the results obtained, it could be suggested that spheroidization at relatively higher temperature above $950^{\circ}C$ could be achieved by small addition of Si.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.230-236
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• 2023

The current study deals with the effect of cooling rate and temperature for annealing on medium-carbon Cr-Mo alloy steel, especially for cold heading quality wire rod, to derive the optimum micro-structures for plastic deformation. This is to optimize the spheroidization heat treatment conditions for softening the material. Heat treatment was performed under seven different conditions at a temperature between A_c1 and A_c3, mostly within 720℃ to 760℃, and the main variables at this time were temperature, retention time and cooling rate. Microstructure and phase changes were observed for each test condition, and it was confirmed that they were greatly affected by the cooling rate. It was also confirmed that the cooling rate was changed in the range of 0.1℃/min to 5℃/min and affected by phase deformation and spheroidization fraction. The larger the spheroidization fraction, the lower the hardness, which is associated with the increasing connection of ferrite phases.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.87-90
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• 2004

In this paper, net-shape forming of an automobile gear is investigated. Barrel, a component of automobile start motor, is adopted as a net-shape forming. In order to accomplish the goal of net-shape forming without cutting of tooth and cam after forming, forming ability is raised through billet treatment and die design. As a technique of billet treatment spheroidizing annealing of billet to get low hardness and molybdenum disulphide coating to get low contact friction between billet and die is carried out. One of critical points of die design, fillet radii variation of tooth of die is applied to get smooth surface of barrel after cold forging. As a measurement of tooth accuracy, distance between two pins and lead-tooth alignments are investigated. Cam profile accuracy is checked with a 3D measuring instrument. Results obtained from the tests revealed reasonable result with respect to design goal. By these results, the paper shows that reasonable results can be obtained by billet treatment and die design for net-shape forming.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.181-189
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• 2015

Two types of advanced cold-work tool steels were characterized and compared. A higher-alloyed ledeburitic steel with primary carbides (denoted as 9Cr) and a lower-alloyed steel without primary carbides (5Cr) were fabricated by vacuum induction melting and subsequent hot forging. They were spheroidizing-annealed at $870^{\circ}C$, quenched at $1030^{\circ}C$ and tempered at 180 or $520^{\circ}C$. Their machinability after annealing and hardness, impact toughness, wear resistance after tempering were compared and interpreted in association with their characteristic microstructures. After annealing, 5Cr showed higher resistance to machining due to higher ductility and toughness in spite of lower strength and smaller carbide volume. Owing to smaller carbide volume fraction and the absence of coarse primary carbides, 5Cr showed even better impact toughness although the hardness was lower. The improved toughness of 5Cr resulted in excellent wear resistance, while smaller volume fraction of retained austenite also contributed to it.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.239-249
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• 2015

Various amount of NbC carbide was intentionally formed in a matrix-type cold-work tool steel by controlled amount of Nb and C addition. And the effect of NbC addition on the mechanical properties was investigated. Four alloys with different Nb and C contents were cast by vacuum induction melting, then hot forging and spheroidizing annealing were conducted. The machinability of the annealed specimens was examined with 3 different cutting tools. And tensile tests at room temperature were conducted. After quenching and tempering, hardness and impact toughness were measured, while wear resistance was evaluated by disk-on-plate type wear test. The increasing amount of NbC addition resulted in degraded machinability with increased strength, whereas the absence of NbC also led to poor machinability due to high toughness. After quenching and tempering, the additional NbC improved wear resistance with increasing hardness, whereas it deteriorated impact toughness. Therefore, it could be found that a moderate addition of NbC was desirable for the balanced combination of mechanical properties.