The effects of cryogenic treatment on the toughness and tribological behaviors of eutectoid steel

Ultra Low Temperature Process Effects on Micro-Scale Abrasion of Tool Steel AISI D2

“…The hardness values for the samples submitted to different heat treatment schemes can be directly related to the magnitude of the reduction of the retained austenite softness and to the improvement in the amount of hard and fine secondary carbides dispersed in the martensitic matrix (figure 6). Several papers report an increase in the hardness of tool steels with deep cryogenic treatment, such as [8,14,15,25,[39][40][41][42][43]. An increase of approximately 7% in the microhardness of the A2 tool steel due to the deep cryogenic treatment over the conventional heat treatment is reported by Zurecki [39].…”

“…An improvement of 4.1% due to the cryogenic treatment over the conventional 18NiCrMo5 steel [43]. Çakir and Çelik [15] performed cryogenic treatment after tempering and prior to tempering for eutectoid steel, describing a slight increase in the hardness of the samples and as the cryogenic treatment time increases (for 36 h) the hardness increases slightly.…”

“…Clustering of interstitial carbon at cryogenic temperature (liquid nitrogen -196 ° C) was confirmed by Barbé et al [44] when they studied austenite metastable in low alloy steel FeCMnSi TRIP. When the low temperature treatment is applied after the first tempering, the amount of retained austenite that is converted to martensite during the cryogenic treatment [15] may be considerably smaller than expected, since part of the retained austenite may have been stabilized by pre-cryogenic treatment [45]. Collins [10] reports that the higher the amount of retained transformed austenite the greater the difference in hardness caused by the cryogenic treatment; and the formation of fine carbides, which are attributed to the deep cryogenic treatment, results in increased wear resistance and toughness of the material, but little or no effect on the hardness.…”

“…The use of a suitable combination of carbides in the structure of the tool material also affects the properties [7]. By optimizing the heat treatment parameters and using additional thermal and thermochemical processes, the tool steel properties and wear resistance can be improved and adjusted for a specific application [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. It is reported that the deep cryogenic treatment of rapid tempered steel and tempered tools increases the hardness, reduces the consumption of tools and downtime for assembly equipment, leading to a cost reduction of about 50% [8].…”

Effect of deep cryogenic treatment on the microstructure and mechanical properties of AlCrFe2Ni2 High-entropy alloy

“…Deep cryogenic treatment was shown to improve the wear resistance by 2%-21% in a series of Al-Si alloys [25]. Other research [26][27][28][29] has shown that deep cryogenic treatment causes the grain size to decrease, (e.g., the size of plate martensite [30]), phase transitions (e.g., the transformation of residual austenite into martensite [31]), increased the diffusion of precipitated carbide, and improve the hardness and wear resistance of alloys. The deep cryogenic treatment of magnesium alloys has been shown to refine the microstructures, dissolve the brittle phase, and improve the properties [32][33][34].…”