FUNDAMENTALS OF INTEGRATED HEAT-TREATMENT

Objective. In many instances of steel product manufacture, heat treatm ents are necessary which, if the process is suitably managed, can be i ntegrated into other process steps. It thereby becomes possible to imp art material properties to certain products that are unachievable by a ,conventional heat treatment route. Furthermore, the process costs are reduced by the elimination of separate heat treatments. Summary. In t he manufacture of steel products heat treatment processes are applied to make use of a very wide variety of metallurgical mechanisms which, depending on the individual product, achieve a certain structure and t hus certain product properties. The process-related possibilities that can be reliably used nowadays permit adherence to exacting process pa rameters during heat treatments. As a result, also more complex heat t reatment strategies can be integrated into other process steps when ma nufacturing steel products. The material properties of certain product s can be achieved only by a process-integrated heat treatment. With th e aid of examples, attention is drawn to possibilities that have so fa r been used in the manufacture of flat and long products.