Consolidated Engineering Company

Steel Annealing

Steel Annealing

Annealing & Stress Relieving Treatments can be performed at either subcritical or critical temperature levels; above or below 1,340 °F (730 °C) for standard carbon steel. All steel anneal treatments require that the product be allowed to cool slowly, in the furnace itself, so that a properly softened metal structure can be realized. Stress relieving is preformed to relieve the internal stresses contained in a part, after hot work, cold work, or quenching has been completed. Relief is preformed to prevent distortion or cracking that might occur when a part is either further machined or used in real-world work. CEC has designed a large variety of annealing & relief furnaces with multiple chambers to maximize furnace efficiency for this treatment. The critical, or austenite temperatures for steel vary according to the amount of carbon or other alloying elements that they contain. If your goal is to soften steel significantly for further working or machining, annealing above critical temperature is typical. These processes, called Spheroidizing, Full Annealing, & Isothermal Annealing, require very high temperature furnaces with rugged build quality. If your process requires subcritical annealing or typical stress relief, the temperature needed will be lower. These treatments are often called process annealing if their purpose is to increase the steel’s ductility so that further work to be performed like forming or drawing.