2. Stress relief and softening treatments

2.1 Softening treatments

The purpose of softening treatments is to facilitate the deformation of materials during forming operations or to facilitate machining.

When the material has previously been work-hardened, the level of treatment should enable restoration or recrystallization. In concrete terms, the effectiveness of this treatment will mainly depend on the solutionization of the hardening phase (γ ' or ${\text{γ}}^{″}$ ) and, if possible, the carbides, as these constituents increase the material's strength and therefore limit deformability.

The temperatures and times to be used are similar to those for solution...