Howannealing,stressreliefandagingeachaffectthe.PDFVIP

How annealing, stress relief and aging each affect the mechanical properties of spring materials By Terry Bartel Elgiloy Specialty Metals n the metals industry, there are numerous steps storm. We will concentrate only on those forms of Ifrom the raw material to a finished product. For heat treatment that are most commonly used in the our purposes here, the finished product is a spring spring industry: annealing, stress relieving and ag- (which, in turn, will be used as the raw product ing. There are many other terms that fit under the in producing someone else’s finished product). Be- heat-treatment umbrella, but these three are the ing involved in the supply of raw materials to the most commonly encountered. Even within these spring industry, I am frequently asked for assis- three, one can find further sub-classifications, but tance and recommendations for virtually all of the exploring them in this article would only add con- various mechanical and physical properties of the fusion. many different metals that are typically used to By way of introduction, the following definitions produce springs. The second most-asked question may be applied (all definitions are taken from the involves the heat treatment of the metal used to ASM Materials Engineering Dictionary): produce the spring. Heat Treatment: Heating and cooling a solid In many cases, when the spring producer is metal or alloy in such a way as to obtain desired working from either a print or customer specifica- conditions or properties. H