The purpose of the diploma work was to study the influence of spheroidisation annealing on the hardness and microstructure of steel 42CrMo4.
In order to carry out the spheroidization annealing in a laboratory, samples of dimensions of 100 mm x 100 mm x 56 mm were cut from the steel plate of thickness of 56 mm. On the steel in hot-rolled conditions, a dilatometry was carried out for the determination of Ac1 and Ac3 transformation temperatures, which were determined to be715 °C and 782 °C, respectively. The microstructure of steel prior to sfereoidisation annealing was martensitic-bainitic with some areas of lamellar perlite. The average hardness was 288.8 HB. The steel was spheroidized at 700 °C, the time of sphereoidization annealing were from 1 hour to 24 hours.
At the time of sporeoidization annealing, the degree of spheroidization increased from 50% after 1 and 2 hours to annealing up to 95% after 12 and 24 hours of annealing. Also, with the time of annealing, the hardness was reduced from 233.2 HB after 1 hour of annealing to 186.6 HB after 24 hours of annealing. The required reduction in hardness below 240 HB was achieved after 1 hour of spheroidisation annealing.
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