Question

What is the main criterion for heat treatment of alloys and/or materials?

Answer 1

in general if we talk about materials they are normally categorized as ferrous material and non ferrous material, may it be alloy or any different kind of material.

now before we talk about the criterion for the heat treatment its very important to know why do we do heat treatment process? and frankly there are a lot of answers to this question but i will quote the most simple one; firstly heating a material increase the hardness of the material given that it is a ferrous type material or any non ferrous but metallic type material, secondly it cannot be done with every material. it sounds silly but this is the basic that one need to understand.

now as far as criterion is considered they can be

1. For what application the material is to be used eg: shafts, cylinder or bolts, depending on the application one need to see whether the material needs hardness in abundance or other properties are also significant

2. In what amount will the treatment effect the properties of the material i.e. the process is time consuming and also costly so if the properties are not increased by a certain amount carrying out this process is unneccessary.

3. Once its clear that you need to go for the heat treatment you need to check the following properties:

a. grade or composition of material

b. min and max section size

c. compactness

d. weight of the material

all the other criteria are also there and if there is any specific that you need, you can ask me i will try my best to answer