controlofdecarburizationofsteel-IndustrialHeating.PDFVIP

CONTROL OF DECARBURIZATION OF STEEL Paul Shefsiek Introduction Historically, heating steel for forming, forging or rolling, was done in electrical resistance or natural gas heated furnaces. It was inevitable that these furnaces contained Oxygen and Decarburization of the steel surface occurred. This decarburization was either ignored or minimized by coating the steel with “ stopoff “. Also, this decarburization was minimized through the use nitrogen atmosphere furnaces. But, decarburization could not be reduced to acceptable limits until the Chemical Potential of the Carbon in the furnace atmosphere matched the dissolved Carbon in the steel. The Furnace Industry that provides Equipment for the processing of steel, because of the temperature ranges involved, divided itself into two categories, namely, Reheat and Heat Treating. Each has its own special Technology. But, because of this division, quite often one division does not know the Technology of the other. In some cases this has been unfortunate. If the Reheat side of the Industry had the Carburizing Technology of the Heat Treating side, this Technology could have been applied to applications where preventing Decarburizing was a requirement. Therefore, the purpose of the following discussion is to separate out that part of Carburizing Technology that is applicable to preventing Decarburization in Reheat applications. Fundamentals Control of the Decarburization of Steel has been standardized to the monitoring of - The Metal Temperature (Furnace Temperature) - The Atmosphere Concentration of Carbon Monoxide (CO) - The Atmosphere Concentration of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Knowing the values of these three (3) parameters and the knowledge of - Saturated Austenite in Iron - The Alloy Content of the Steel - The Equilibrium Constant for the Controllable