Principles of Heat Treating of Steels A steel is usually defined as an alloy of iron and carbon with the content between a few hundreds of a percent up to about 2 wt%. Other alloying elements can amount in total to about 5 wt% in low-alloy steels and higher in more highly alloyed steels such as tool steels and stainless steels. Steels can exhibit a wide variety of properties depending on composition as well as the phases and microconstituents present, which in turn depend on the heat treatment. The Fe-C Phase DiagramThe basis for the understanding of the heat treatment of steels is the Fe-C phase diagram. Because it is well explained in earlier volumes of Metals Handbook and in many elementary textbooks, the stable iron-graphite diagram and the metastable Fe-Fe3 C diagram. The stable condition usually takes a very long time to develop, especially in the low-temperature and low-carbon range, and therefore the metastable diagram is of more interest. The Fe-C diagram shows which phases are to be expected at equilibrium for different combinations of carbon concentration and temperature. We distinguish at the low-carbon and ferrite, which can at most dissolve 0.028 wt% C at 727 oC and austenite which can dissolve 2.11 wt% C at 1148 oC. At the carbon-rich side we find cementite. Of less interest, except for highly alloyed steels, is the d-ferrite existing at the highest temperatures. Between the single-phase fields are found regions with mixtures of two phases, such as ferrite + cementite, austenite + cementite, and ferrite + austenite. At the highest temperatures, the liquid phase field can be found and below this are the two phase fields liquid + austenite, liquid + cementite, and liquid + d-ferrite. In heat treating of steels the liquid phase is always avoided. Some important boundaries at single-phase fields have been given special names. These include: the carbon content at which the minimum austenite temperature is...
