Heat-Treating Steel

Materials:
• 4 bobby pins
• 4 large paperclips
• Heat source – Bunsen burner or propane torch
• Container of water for quenching
• Tongs or pliers

Procedure:

1. Set aside one bobby pin and one paperclip for comparison. (Control)

2. Heat the loop of one bobby pin and a loop of one paperclip red hot and slowly lift out of flame.
Slow cool. (Anneal)

3. Heat 2 of each red hot and quench in ice water. Quick cool. (Quench)

4. Take one of each from step #3 and heat again in the top of the flame for a few seconds and
then quench. Do NOT let it get red hot. (Temper)

5. Make a data table for comparison of properties when the heat-treated area is bent.

6. Test the bobby pins one at a time by slowly pulling the ends apart. Record observations.

7. Test the paperclips one at a time by pulling the heat-treated loop open. Record observations.

8. Propose reasons for any differences in results.

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Notes:
• Don’t heat beyond red hot – too much heat and you start burning out the carbon.
• Bobby pins are high carbon steel and paper clips are low carbon steel.
• This lab is usually done after the iron wire demo so that students have been exposed to the
idea of allotropes and solid state phase changes in regards to iron.
• This lab is also usually done after the work-hardening and heat-treating of copper lab.

Typical Results:

control anneal quench temper

bobby pin “normal” softer, easier to snaps in two, feels much like
bend, lost the brittle the control
springiness
paperclip “normal” softer, easier to varies depending doesn’t feel much
bend on the paperclip, different than
sometimes the other
harder, paperclips
sometimes more
like the control,
but is NOT
brittle, doesn’t
break

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Why steel is affected differently by heat treating:

• Iron is allotropic – BCC below 912° C and FCC above 912° C

• Steel is an interstitial alloy – most other alloys are substitutional
• FCC is more tightly packed than BCC but has larger individual gaps – carbon fits into FCC
better than it does BCC
• Carbon can be in different locations and in different forms:
o Between grain boundaries
o In the interstices (gaps within the crystal)
o Bonded with iron as Fe3C (cementite) which is a ceramic
• Annealing is like what happens with copper
o there is crystal regrowth and dislocations are decreased
o the metal is softened
o carbon has time to migrate to lowest energy positions
• Quenching causes steel to become very strong but also very brittle
o forms an intermediate crystal structure which is metastable (has extra energy
stored) – it is body-centered tetragonal
o Carbon does not have time to migrate out to lower energy positions
o Extra “stress” is in the crystal
• Tempering is a secondary heat treatment
o Strength is maintained while improving toughness – removes some of the brittleness
o Carbon has time and energy to migrate to lower energy positions
o Remains body-centered tetragonal
o Called martensite

Bobby pin is high carbon steel – approximately 0.7%. Therefore, the carbon has a large effect on
the properties and greater differences are observed in the various heat treatments.

Paper clips are low carbon steel – approximately 0.2%. The strengthening of the steel during
quenching is mostly due to the solid state phase change from FCC to BCT. Therefore tempering
doesn’t alter the properties really – there isn’t enough carbon to cause brittleness during quenching.

Copyright © 2010, ASM International. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2010, ASM International. All Rights Reserved.