Normalizing / Annealing

Normalization and annealing is a heat treatment performed by slowly cooling the material in a controlled manner (mostly in the oven) after raising it to a temperature above or slightly below the critical temperature for many different purposes.

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Normalizing is done to correct coarse-grained and oriented structures after processes such as forging and rolling, and to improve mechanical properties by obtaining a homogeneous structure. It can also be applied to reduce the stresses that occur in the material after casting.

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With the normalization process, the workability of the materials increases.

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It is an important heat treatment for improving the magnetic properties of metals, for example ferritic stainless steels.

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A protective atmosphere must be selected to prevent carbon burning (decarburization) and scaling (oxidation) in the material during annealing.

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Since it is a general process name, it is important to provide additional information about the purpose for which it is performed in order to understand the process correctly.

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For example,

• Bright annealing

• Softening anneal

• Isothermal annealing

• Magnetic annealing

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It is applied on all metal materials.

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• Steels

  • 1.3343, SAE 4340, 1.2344, 1.2379, 100Cr6 etc.​

• Nickel-based superalloys

  • Inconel, Waspaloy, Hastelloy, Incoloy and Udimet etc.​

• Precipitation hardening stainless steels

  • 17-4 PH, Maraging250, ​A-286​

• ​Ferritic stainless steels

  • AISI 430FR (1.4105)

• Titanium alloys

  • 6Al-4V, 6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo and 13V-11Cr-3Al

• Aluminum alloys

  • 6061, 7075, 2014 and 7050

• Copper alloys

  • UNC C17200, C17300​

• Magnesium alloys​

  • HM21, ZK31

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In the automotive industry, CQI-9 Table E is used for this heat treatment technique.

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