ADAMA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF MECHANICAL,CHEMICAL AND MATERIALS

ENGINEERING
MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING PROGRAM

MATERIALS LABRATORY1(MSE3301)
METAL LAB REPORT

EFFECT OF CARBON CONTENT AND

COOLING MEDIA ON THE
MICROSTRUCTURE AND MECHANICAL
PROPETIES OF STEEL.

BY: Tadilo Mulatie Simegnew

ID:R/1099/ 08

submitted to:Dr Dinsafa Mensur Andoshe

date: 12th January 2018
 Table of contents.

Content …................…...................................... page

1. Abstract.......................................................................3

2. Introduction................................................................3

3. Experimental procedures...........................................4

3.1 Sample preparation...................................................4

3.1.1 sectioning.................................................................4

3.1.2 heat treatments.......................................................5

3.1.3 mounting,grinding and polishing..........................5

3.2 etching and microscopic examination......................6

3.2.1 etching......................................................................6

3.2.2 microscopic examination........................................7

4. Result and discussion....................................................8

5. Conclusion.....................................................................6

6.References.........................................................................7
1. ABSTRACT.

Three different carbon steel with different carbon composition were prepared and examined to

determine the effect of carbon content and cooling method on the microstructure and mechanical

properties of steel. In this examination the effect of heat treatment; annealing, normalizing and

quenching on the microstructures and hardness of 0.2wt%C,0.4wt%C and 1wt%C content

samples were performed. The three samples; 0.2wt%C, 0.4wt%C and 1wt%C were cut with an

abrasive cutter and putted in a furnace which is 900C and waited for 1 hour. Followed by

mounting, coarse grinding, fine grinding, polishing, etching and microscopic examinations.

Hardness, grain size with volume fraction and effect of heat treatment on the microstructure

were determined. It was found that Increasing carbon content became a cause to be increased

hardness and strength and also improved hardenability.But carbon also increased brittleness

reduced ductility and weldablity; because of its tendency to form martensite structure.

Key words; microstructure, heat treatment, grinding, polishing, etching,

2. INTRODUCTION

Steels are iron–carbon alloys that may contain appreciable concentrations of other alloying

elements. Plain carbon alloys can be classified in to three category those are low carbon alloy

which contains 0.2wt % carbon, medium carbon alloy which contains 0.4wt % of carbon, and

high carbon alloy which contains 1wt% of carbon.

Heat treatment improves microstructure and mechanical properties of steel. properties of metals
highly depend on their structure. By understanding internal structure it is possible to decide how

materials are performed under a given applications. Since the effects of industrial processes

applied to metals to control their properties can be explained by examining theirs microstructure.

Steel can be employed in wide range of applications; such as, aerospace components,turbine

blade,car engine,railway,bridge, pipelines, submarines,cranes,die,spring,cutting

tools,gears,bolts,nuts and so on.

This paper aimed to investigate the structure and hardness of steel of different carbon

composition depending to the wending of the cooling media; i.e furnace ,air and water and also

determination of grain size of the microstructure for pearlite with volume fractions by the help

of light microscop and vicker's hardness tester machine.

New microstructures were observed by austenization through heating at critical temperature

and cooling in different medias. from those procedures, Austinization was the main part of

experimental process.

1.AUSTNIZATION; is process that heating the steel at 900 degree Celsius in tube Furnace

every things changes to austenite because of above 900 degree Celsius. Austenitization converts

BCC iron into the FCC solid solution called austenite when the steel is heated into the austenitic

phase field and held there long enough. Austenitization also precedes many hot working

processes used to form steel products because it occurs when the steel is heated to the hot-

working temperatures.

3.EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES.

3.1. SAMPLE PREPARATION.

3.1.1 Sectioning: cutting a piece of metal sample for metallographic specimen.

Objective; to learn and gain experience in the preparation of metal sample.

To examine and analysis the microstructure and constituents in metals /steel

Materials: 0.2, 0.4 and 1wt% Carbon contained steels.

Equipments; Abrasive cutter, furnance,water bath and ceramics plates.

Three different carbon contained samples of 0.2wt%Carbon, 0.4wt% Carbon and 1wt% Carbon

were cutted by using abrasive cutter. water was bulb on around the blade to safe the blade and

keep the surface of specimen from destroying by minimizing the heat and the friction between the

surfaces.

3.1.2 Heat-treatment:

objective: to understanding the microstructure transformation. to produce a great Variety of

microstructure.

Equipment: furnace, ceramic plate

Supplies: Steel (0.2, 0.4 and 1.0wt%C)

All specimens were putted in to the furnace then adjust the furnace to 900c o and heated for one

hour. After one hour we open the Furnace and take the specimen to different cooling

system(furnace cooling, air cooling and water cooling).

(a) furnace cooling (annealing):-heat the metal to a temperature of 900c o and cooling slowly to

obtain a soft metal sample of homogeneous phase.

(b) air cooling (normalizing):- heat the sample at extreme temperature of 900c oand cooling slowly

in air to obtain harder and stronger than annealing.

(c) water cooling (quenching):-heat the sample to a temperature of 900c o then Cool rapidly in

water to get harder specimen than others. That means0.2 wt.% C Carbon steel, air cooled 0.4 wt.

% C Carbon steel, air cooled1.0 wt.% C Carbon steel, air cooled0.4 wt.% C Carbon steel,

furnace cooled 0.4 wt.% C Carbon steel

3.1.3. Monting,Grinding and Polishing.

Mounting: Mounting is covering of the sample by plastic cover.

Objective: for convenience in handling of the the specimen of small sizes, difficult shapes and

sizes during the subsequent preparation and examination. To protect and preserve extreme edges

or surface defects during metallographic preparation.

Grinding: is rubbing the piece of sample by a rough surface called grining paper.

Objective: to obtain flat surface free from all previously tool marks and cold working due to

specimen cutting.

Polishing: to produce smooth, scratch free mirror like reflective surface.

Materials used: three specimen with different alloying composition.

Instruments used: mounting press machine and polisher/grinder.

This several steps are rough grinding, fine grinding, and polishing.In the first step, saw cut

specimens are rough ground on a belt surface are supplied with a sand paper or grinding paper

of number 400, 800, 1200 and 2000 respectively. Starting with 400 after finishing to use the next

one clean with running water and dry by air compressor then rotate the specimen 90 o from the

first to make continuously. After grinding to removes the artifacts of little stock polishing is
needed that make the surface mirror by adding diamond suspension. When do this moderate

pressure is needed at the start of each step and then gradually reduce the pressure as the step

proceeds for keeping the specimen from plastic deformations.

3.2. Etching and Microscopic examination.

3.2.1 Etching

Objective: to optically enhance microstructural features such as grain size and phase present.

Materials used: polished steel specimen, 0.5ml HNO3 acid, 50ml ethanol, beaker and

dropper.

Etching is to reveal microstructural features through selective chemical attack to present the

grain or phase present. The chemical used for etching is called Nital solutiona mixture of 0.5ml of

Nitric acid with 50ml alcohol that is commonly used for routine etching of metals. .All samples

rinsing and cleaning was performed with ethanol to avoid adverse reactions of the sample

surface. This is to examine and analyze the microstructure of metallographic specimen under this

analyze the grain size and percent diffractive of perlite and ferrite.The samples were immersed

and swabbed with the etchant for approximately 10 seconds to 1 miniute depends on the

concentration and the material type. to reveal the microstructural features after that take out the

specimen and wash with running water and alcohol.

3.2.2 Microscopic examination:

objective: to analyse and examine the microstructure of steels and alloys.

Insruments used: light microscope.

After etching the specimen is placed under the microscopic stage and its surface be perpendicular
to the optical axis of the microscope to examine microstructures. For one specimen taking photo

five times. The picture took from Optical Microscope can be measured the grain size and volume

fraction of each phase by ASTM method. This is make grid line at equal distance on the photo

graph of the different samples.

3.3. Hardness Test.

hardness usually implies a resistance to permanent deformation.There are three general types of

hardness measurements depending upon the manner in which the test is conducted. These are (1)

scratch hardness, (2) indentation hardness, and (3) rebound, or dynamic, hardness. Only

indentation hardness is of major engineering interest for metals. From these we use Vickers test.

The Vickers hardness test uses a square-base diamond pyramid as the indenter. The included

angle between opposite faces of the pyramid is 136°.Because of the shape of the indenter this is

frequently called the diamond pyramid hardness test. The diamond-pyramid hardness number

(DPH), or Vickers hardness number (VHN, or VPH), is defined as the load divided by the surface

area of the indentation.

In practice, this area is calculated from microscopic measurements of the lengths of the diagonals

of the impression. Vickers hardness test is a mechanical test to know the strength of the specimen

by applying load on the surface of the specimen. For our purpose hardness is a measure of the

resistance of a material to the load that is applied by the indenter. An indenter of a fixed

geometry is pressed into the surface of a specimen by a specific 10 Kg load applied. Each

specimen is checked one times under Vickers hardness machine. During this there are two point
i.e. loading takes 15 second and unloading which takes 10 seconds.

4.RESULT AND DISCUSSION.

A) HEAT TREATMENT RESULT.

After heating at 900˚c in the furnace for 1 hour the different carbon composition i,e (0.2wt%C,

0.4wt%C, 1wt%C) samples cooled in three different cooling systems. i.e water, air, and furnace

in order to get different microstructures. As the samples heated above critical temperature the

microstructure of the samples converted from alpha-ferritic which have BCC structure to all

gamma-austinitic which have FCC structure.

As quenched in the water the metal coold rapidly from high temperature and its microsructure

transforms from austenite to martensite structures;this transformation is known as martensitic

transformation. In this case the carbon atoms does not get enough time to arrange itself due to

this reason martensitic transformations are diffusionless transformation.

In air cooling or normalizing, steel is uniformly heated to 900c which causes complete

transformation to austenite. Steel is held at this temperature for one hour for the formation of

homogenous structure throughout its mass. It is then allowed to cool in still air in a uniform

manner. Air cooling results into faster cooling rate when compared with the furnace cooling rate

Thus, the cooling time in normalizing is drastically reduced as compared to annealing.After

normalizing the portions of steel containing 0.80% of carbon are pearlite while the areas having

low carbon are ferrites. The redistribution of carbon atoms takes place between ferrite (0.022 %

by wt.) and cementite (6.7% by wt.) by the process of atomic diffusion. The amount of pearlite is

more than that in annealed steel with same carbon content. This is because of shifting of the

eutectoid composition to lower value and formation of cementite.

Furnace cooling or annealing:-the austenized sample then allowed to cool very slowly still in the

furnace;the carbon atom diffuse in the structure. The result microstructure is fine grained

pearlite.

figure 1; time, temperature, transformation graph.

TTT Diagram provides the following points

 type of transformation-reconstructive or displace rate of transformation

 Nature of transformation- isothermal or a thermal (time independent) or mixed

 Stability of phases under isothermal transformation condition Temperature or time

 required to start or finish transformation

 Qualitative information about size scale of product.

Steel type Heating Heated time Cooling system Cooling rate Result
temperature. microstructure.
0.2%carbon 9000c 1 hr water Medium Martensite
0.4%carbon 9000c 1 hr Air Medium Ferrite and
pearlite
0.4%carbon 9000c 1 hr Water Very fast Martensite
structure
0.4%carbon 9000c 1 hr Furnace Very slow Ferrite and more
pearlite
1.0%ccarbon 9000c. 1 hr Air Medium Cementite and
pearlite

Table 1;heat treatment data withtemperature, time, cooling rate, and resulted microstructure.

B) HARDNESS TEST RESULT.

Hardness is the measure of the materials ability to resist indentation. there are different methods to

measure the hardness of metals; but we uses vickers hardness test machine to perform the

operation.

hardness test value for 0.4%c furnace cooled sample.

As we have seen from the figures the Vickers hardness test of 0.4wt%C furnace cooling

media is little different at the edge of the sample is changed. But the Vickers hardness test

must be the average of total calculated Vickers hardness test of material.

Figure2; micrograph of furnace cooled 0.4%c specimen under vickers hardness test machine.

We measure the hardness value five times for each sample and the average value calculated.

Trial D1(μm) D2(μm) HV(Mpa)

1 329.993 327.634 171.5
2 320.737 327.634 176.4
3 327.634 327.634 172.7
4 331.083 327.634 170.9
5 326.485 333.382 170.3
Average 172.36

Table 2 average hardness value of 0.4wt% c furnace cooled sample.

HV =(171.5+176.4+172.7+170.9+170.3)/5=172.36 HV.

hardness test value for 0.4%c air cooled specimen.

HV=(210.8+193.2+204.4+201.3+201.3)/5 = 202.2

hardness test value for 0.4%c water cooled specimen.

HV = (521.6+458.1+537.9+435.4+447.8)/5 = 480.18

hardness test value for 0.2%c water cooled sample.

HV= (186.9+180.9+184.8+187.5+191.0)/5= 186.22

hardness test value for 1.0%c air cooled specimen.

HV=(380.6+421.2+423.5+403.3+396.9)/5= 405.1

Carbon content. Cooling media. Average HV

0.4% c Water 480.18
1.0% c Air 405.1
0.4% c Air 202.2
0.2% c Water 186.22
0.4% c Furnace 172.36

Table 3 the average hardness value with carbon content and cooling media.

From the experiment it was observed that the hardness values of steel is highly sensitive to the

concentration of carbon and also depends on the cooling media of the sample.

As the concentration of carbon increased hardness of the steel increased

but its ductility decrease. As the cooling rate of the sample increase its hardness value increase and

ductility decrease.

C) VOLUME FRACTION OF PEARLITE.

6. REFERENCES.
1) a materials laboratory 1 manual 2017/18 of ASTU.

2)MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING AN INTRODUCTION / William D. Callister,

Jr.—8th edition.

3 )M. R. Lou than, Jr., Optical metallography, in Metals Handbook, 9th ed., Vol. 10,

4) Robert F Mehl and Michael B. Bever. “Metallurgy and Metallurgical Engineering Series”

Consulting Editor.

5) google search.

6) Time Temperature Transformation (TTT) Diagrams R. Manna

7)