2. Special heat treatments

Steels are sometimes subjected to special heat treatments, generally intended to remedy the harmful consequences of certain manufacturing or processing methods.

That's how we'd like it:

• reduce chemical heterogeneities due to the solidification process;

• homogenize the structure in the mass while refining the grains if necessary;

• restore mechanical and physical properties altered by work-hardening ;

• eliminate hydrogen introduced into the metal during acid pickling or electroplating;

• relax residual stresses generated by welding.

To achieve this, the following heat treatments are carried out, respectively:

• ...