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Materials

& Design
Materials and Design 29 (2008) 251256
www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Short Communication

Inuence of dierent initial microstructure on the process


of spheroidization in cold forging
Erdal Karadeniz

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Sakarya University, Esentepe Campus, 54187 Sakarya, Turkey
Received 23 March 2006; accepted 21 November 2006
Available online 30 March 2007

Abstract
In the study, an investigation has been carried out for spheroidization of medium carbon steel (AISI 4140) used in forging industry.
Two dierent spheroidization processes were considered. The rst one was the annealing of normalized steel under A1 temperature for a
long time. The second was the annealing of hardened steel under A1 temperature for a long time. Specimens which were normalized and
hardened before the experiments were exposed to spheroidization annealing at 700 C temperature for ve dierent time periods as 4, 8,
12, 24 and 48 h. For evaluation of cold forgeability with dierent spheroidization annealing periods, the hardness, percentage of reduction in area in unaxial tension and reduction of area in notched tensile test were recorded. The results of reduction of area in notched
tensile test showed that the highest performance is reached with 12 h spheroidization time after being hardened.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Cold forging has been widely used for forming of medium carbon steel machine parts. Medium carbon steels
have been usually softened by spheroidizing treatment
before applying cold forging processes. In this process,
the ductility of the materials is one of the most important
factors. The materials should be ductile enough in order
not to be damaged. Spheroidizing provides the needed ductility for cold forgeability [1,2]. These spheroidization treatments are long (1048 h). Due to longer process time
causing increase in material treatment cost, the shortest
time is aimed in industrial applications.
Usually, two types of spheroidization processes are used
in forging industry [1]. In the rst one termed intercritical
process, the spheroidization treatment consists of heating
the steel into the intercritical temperature region (740
760 C) for 26 h and then slowly cooling below the lower
critical temperature (700715 C) and holding at this temperature for 820 h before cooling to room temperature,
*

Tel.: +90 264 2955856; fax: + 90 264 2955601.


E-mail address: erdalk@sakarya.edu.tr

0261-3069/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2006.11.015

as shown in Fig. 1(a). In the second one termed subcritical


process, the steel could be spheroidized by heating it to just
below the A1 temperature for a long time, as shown in
Fig. 1(b). Initial microstructures were normalized for intercritical process and subcritical process. This normalized
microstructure consists of a ne pearlite, which should be
spheroidized rapidly. When investigating the two processes, it was observed that the spheroidization process is
accomplished in a shorter time by the subcritical process
than the intercritical process [1,3]. Since the intercritical
process destroys this normalized microstructure by heating
into the intercritical region [1]. It is noticed in the literature
review that the researchers using the subcritical process
studied with initial martensitic (hardened) microstructure
starting conditions [4,5] but it is also noticed that there is
not any study that consists of the comparative investigation of the cold forgeability and spheroidization for these
two starting conditions.
The aim of this study is to investigate the inuence of
initial ferrite-pearlite microstructure and initial martensitic
microstructure on the spheroidization time periods. When
evaluating the optimal spheroidization time periods, cold
forgeability values determined by the reduction of area in

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E. Karadeniz / Materials and Design 29 (2008) 251256

Temperature

A1

Fig. 2. Notch tensile test specimen [9].

ef 2 lnd 0 =d f
Time

Temperature

A1

where d0 and df are the initial diameter and the diameter at


the point of the fracture [9].
Other mechanical property measurements included the
Brinell hardness (187.5 kg load and 2.5 mm diameter ball)
and the reduction of area in tension tests on bars of
9 mm diameter and 32.1 mm gauge length.
The changes in the microstructure of AISI 4140
steel were monitored by optical microscopy in 500
magnication.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Microstructure

Time
Fig. 1. Spheroidization cycles (a) A typical intercritical annealing cycle.
(b) A possible subcritical annealing cycle.

notched tension tests are taken into consideration. The


results showed that subcritical method with starting condition of martensitic microstructure provided the optimal
cold forgeability in a shorter time.
2. Experimental studies
In this study, AISI 4140 steel was used. It contains
0.41%C, 0.23%Si, 0.77%Mn, 1.08%Cr, 0.18%Mo, 0.01%S
and 0.02%P.
The specimens for spheroidization treatment were prepared from rods having a diameter of 18 mm and a length
of 150 mm. All specimens were annealed at 870 C for
45 min and then quenched in air. Then half of these specimens were annealed again at 870 C for 45 min and then
quenched in oil. These two groups of specimens exposed
to two dierent types of heat treatment were annealed at
700 C for 4, 8, 12, 24 and 48 h to spheroidization in an
industrial heat treatment furnace having 35 kW capacity
and then cooled in the furnace.
The results obtained from tensile test are not accurate
due to neck formation [68]. Therefore, in this study,
plastic deformation and strain values were measured by
means of three dimensional notched tensile tests by using
specimens having 2 mm notch radius shown in Fig. 2 in a
Zwick 1498 tensile test machine having 500 kN capacity
with 2 mm/min. tensile speed in room temperature. The
reduction in cross-section was measured with 0.01 mm
sensitivity.
The fracture strain (cold forgeability) was taken as

In this study, two starting microstructures of AISI 4140


steel were used for spheroidizing treatment. One of them is
a normalized microstructure. This normalized microstructure was realized when initially austenitized at 870 C for
45 min and cooled in air to room temperature. The other
microstructure of AISI 4140 steel is martenzitic. It was produced when initially austenitized at 870 C for 45 min and
quenched in oil to room temperature. Figs. 3 and 4 show
the microstructure of normalized and hardened AISI
4140 steel, respectively.
Figs. 59 present the microstructures of AISI 4140 steel
having dierent spheroidization time periods for normalized samples. In the initial period of spheroidizing treat-

Fig. 3. Normalized microstructure of initially austenitized AISI 4140 steel


at 870 C for 45 min and cooled in air to room temperature.

E. Karadeniz / Materials and Design 29 (2008) 251256

Fig. 4. Hardened microstructure of initially austenitized AISI 4140 steel at


870 C for 45 min and quenched in oil to room temperature.

253

Fig. 6. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 8 h at 700 C for normalized specimen.

ment up to 4 h, pearlites in the microstructure were coarsened and ngerprint structure was disappeared. Over this
period, the degree of spheroidization continued to increase
up to 48 h and primer ferrite grains were seen in all the
samples for all periods. However, ferrite grain size was
becoming ner with increase in time over 4 h. The spheroidization process is too slow. Fig. 9 shows that it was not
accomplished completely at the end of 48 h.
Figs. 1014 present the microstructures of AISI 4140
steel having dierent spheroidization time periods for hardened samples. Spheroidizing treatment of hardened AISI
4140 steel showed that the microstructure of the samples
was gaining a spheroidized microstructure with in a short
treatment time. However, over a period of 12 h grain
growth was seen clearly.

Fig. 7. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 12 h at 700 C for normalized specimen.

On a comparative investigation of the two processes


comparatively, it was observed that the spheroidization
process was accomplished within a short time by the
spheroidization for hardened samples than the spheroidization for normalized samples, and homogeneously distributed carbides were observed inside the hardened specimens.
3.2. Mechanical tests

Fig. 5. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 4 h at 700 C for normalized specimen.

Fig. 15 presents the variation of Brinell hardness with


spheroidization time. For normalized and hardened samples, it is clear from this gure that the hardness decreases
sharply during the rst 4 h. Between 4 and 48 h of spheroidization time, the drop in hardness rate is very less. There

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E. Karadeniz / Materials and Design 29 (2008) 251256

Fig. 8. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 24 h at 700 C for normalized specimen.

Fig. 9. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 48 h at 700 C for normalized specimen.

is not much dierence between the normalized and hardened processes.


As a general approach, hardness test is a convenient test
to investigate the cold forgeability behavior of a material.
It can be said that spheroidization increases the forgeability
and it shows rise trend with increasing spheroidization
times. On comparison of the two processes applied in the
experiments, it was found that the normalized samples
have more advantages in all spheroidization time periods.
From the results of tensile test, the reduction of area in
unaxial tension was found to increase much more rapidly
with spheroidizing process (see Fig. 16), because the
spheroidization process enhances the ductility of steel: this
is valid and similar to the literature [1,10]. Hardened spec-

Fig. 10. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 4 h at 700 C for hardened specimen.

Fig. 11. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 8 h at 700 C for hardened specimen.

imens show better ductility than normalized ones. This is


may be due to the homogeneously distributed carbides
inside the hardened specimens.
Table 1 presents the results of the notched tensile tests.
Fig. 17 presents the variation in reduction of area with
spherodizing time for normalized and hardened samples.
Fig. 17 shows the eect of spheroidization time on cold
forgeability of AISI 4140 steel. Fracture strain, ef, values of
hardened spheroidized specimens increase up to 4 h sharply
then continue to increase with a lower rate up to 12 h. After
that these values start to decrease from this point. This
tendency is seen up to 48 h. Similarly the normalized
spheroidized specimens ef values increasing up to 4 h and

E. Karadeniz / Materials and Design 29 (2008) 251256

Fig. 12. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 12 h at 700 C for hardened specimen.

255

Fig. 14. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing


treatment after 48 h at 700 C for hardened specimen.

Normalized

Hardened

650

Brinell hardness

550

450

350

250

150
0

10

20

30

40

50

Spheroidization time, h
Fig. 15. Hardness decrease during spheroidization of AISI 4140 steels.
Fig. 13. Microstructure of AISI 4140 steel taken from spheroidizing
treatment after 24 h at 700 C for hardened specimen.

Hardened

70

Percent reduction of area

their value continues to increasing up to 48 h with a lower


speed.
On looking at Fig. 17, we can conclude that hardened
specimens used in subcritical spheroidization method reach
higher ductility values in 12 h in comparison to these of
normalized ones, which cannot be shown equal value at
the end of 48 h. Hence, initially hardening and then subcritical spheroidization method application give greater forgeability values in a short time, so it is preferable in cold
forging production from AISI 4140 steel with respect to
time and cost.
Fracture strain, ef, values of hardened specimens
decrease from 24 h to 48 h in spheroidization processes
due to grain growth of spheroidized carbides inside the
structure.

Normalized

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Spheroidization time, h
Fig. 16. Change of ductility of AISI 4140 steel during spheroidization.

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E. Karadeniz / Materials and Design 29 (2008) 251256

Table 1
The results of notched tensile tests
Spheroidiziation time periods (h)

Fracture strain, ef

4
8
12
24
48

Normalized

Hardened

0.16
0.43
0.45
0.46
0.50
0.56

0.02
0.53
0.57
0.60
0.59
0.54

Normalized

Hardened

 The notched tensile test is a useful tool in determining


the eect of spheroidization times on forgeability.
Here, the reduction in area is valid to give accurate
results.
 The highest ductility values were obtained in hardened
spheroidized specimens in 12 h, however, these values
cannot be gained in normalized spheroidized ones in
48 h. Therefore, hardened spheroidized specimens give
more accurate results than that of normalized ones.
 Specimens that were initially hardened and then exposed
to spheroidization process for 12 h give the best cold
forgeability results for AISI 4140 steel.

Cold forgeability

0.7
0.6

References

0.5

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0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Spheroidization time. h
Fig. 17. Change of cold forgeability of AISI 4140 steel during
spheroidization.

4. Conclusion
 It was proven that the spheroidization process recovers
the cold forgeability.

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