Annealing Process

Annealing is a heat process whereby a metal is heated to a specific temperature

/colour and then allowed to cool slowly. This softens the metal which means it can be cut and
shaped more easily. Mild steel, is heated to a red heat and allowed to cool slowly. However,
metals such as aluminium will melt if heated for too long.

Aluminium can be annealed but care must be taken whilst heating. The flame should
be held at a distance to the aluminium so that it gives a generalized heating to the metal.
A ‘trick of the trade’ is to rub soap on to the surface of the aluminium and then heat it on the
brazing hearth. It takes only a short time for the soap to turn black. The brazing torch should
be turned off immediately and the aluminium allowed being cool slowly. It is now annealed
and should be very soft and malleable.

Physical Properties of Annealed Metals

Annealed metals are relatively soft and can be cut and shaped more easily. They bend
easily when pressure is applied. As a rule they are heated and allowed to cool slowly.

The image above shows that an annealed metal is usually softer and can be deformed
more easily than metals that are not annealed.
Physical Properties of Hardened Metals

Hardened metals are difficult to cut and shape. They are very difficult if not
impossible to bend. As a rule they are heated and cooled very quickly by quenching in clean,
cold water.

The image above shows that metals that have not been annealed are very difficult to
deform.

Stages of Annealing

There are three stages in the annealing process, with the first being the recovery
phase, which results in softening of the metal through removal of crystal defects (the primary
type of which is the linear defect called a dislocation) and the internal stresses which they
cause. Recovery phase covers all annealing phenomena that occur before the appearance of
new strain-free grains. The second phase is recrystallization, where new strain-free grains
nucleate and grow to replace those deformed by internal stresses. If annealing is allowed to
continue once recrystallization has been completed, grain growth will occur, in which the
microstructure starts to coarsen and may cause the metal to have less than satisfactory
mechanical properties.

Annealing in a controlled atmosphere

The high temperature of annealing may result in oxidation of the metal’s surface, resulting in
scale. If scale is to be avoided, annealing is carried out in an oxygen-, carbon-, and nitrogen-
free atmosphere (to avoid oxidation, carburization, and nitriding respectively) such as
endothermic gas (a mixture of carbon monoxide, hydrogen gas, and nitrogen.
The magnetic properties of mu-metal (Espey cores) are introduced by annealing the alloy in a
hydrogen atmosphere.

Setup and equipment

Typically, large ovens are used for the annealing process. The inside of the oven is large
enough to place the workpiece in a position to receive maximum exposure to the circulating
heated air. For high volume process annealing, gas fired conveyor furnaces are often used.
For large workpieces or high quantity parts Car-bottom furnaces will be used in order to
move the parts in and out with ease. Once the annealing process has been successfully
completed, the workpieces are sometimes left in the oven in order for the parts to have a
controlled cooling process. While some workpieces are left in the oven to cool in a controlled
fashion, other materials and alloys are removed from the oven. After being removed from the
oven, the workpieces are often quickly cooled off in a process known as quench hardening.
Some typical methods of quench hardening materials involve the use of media such as air,
water, oil, or salt.

Diffusion annealing of semiconductors

In the semiconductor industry, silicon wafers are annealed, so that dopant atoms, usually
boron, phosphorus or arsenic, can diffuse into substitutional positions in the crystal lattice,
resulting in drastic changes in the electrical properties of the semiconducting material.

Specialized annealing cycles

Normalization

Normalization is an annealing process in which a metal is cooled in air after heating in order
to relieve stress.

This process is typically confined to hardenable steel. It is used to refine grains which have
been deformed through cold work, and can improve ductility and toughness of the steel. It
involves heating the steel to just above its upper critical point. It is soaked for a short period
then allowed to cool in air. Small grains are formed which give a much harder and tougher
metal with normal tensile strength and not the maximum ductility achieved by annealing. It
eliminates columnar grains and dendritic segregation that sometimes occurs during casting.
Normalizing improves machinability of a component and provides dimensional stability if
subjected to further heat treatment processes.

Process annealing

Process annealing, also called "intermediate annealing", "subcritical annealing", or "in-

process annealing", is a heat treatment cycle that restores some of the ductility to a work
piece allowing it be worked further without breaking. Ductility is important in shaping and
creating a more refined piece of work through processes such as rolling, drawing, forging,
spinning, extruding and heading. The piece is heated to a temperature typically below the
austenizing temperature, and held there long enough to relieve stresses in the metal. The
piece is finally cooled slowly to room temperature. It is then ready again for additional cold
working. This can also be used to ensure there is reduced risk of distortion of the work piece
during machining, welding, or further heat treatment cycles.

The temperature range for process annealing ranges from 500 °F to 1400 °F, depending on
the alloy in question.

Full anneal

A full anneal typically results in the second most ductile state a metal can assume for metal
alloy. It creates an entirely new homogeneous and uniform structure with good dynamic
properties. To perform a full anneal, a metal is heated to its annealing point (about 50°C
above the austenic temperature as graph shows) and held for sufficient time to allow the
material to fully austenitize, to form austenite or austenite-cementite grain structure. The
material is then allowed to cool slowly so that the equilibrium microstructure is obtained. In
some cases this means the material is allowed to air cool. In other cases the material is
allowed to furnace cool. The details of the process depend on the type of metal and the
precise alloy involved. In any case the result is a more ductile material that has greater stretch
ratio and reduction of area properties but a lower yield strength and a lower tensile strength.
This process is also called LP annealing for lamellar pearlite in the steel industry as opposed
to a process anneal which does not specify a microstructure and only has the goal of
softening the material. Often material that is to be machined, will be annealed, then be
followed by further heat treatment to obtain the final desired properties.

Short cycle anneal

Short cycle annealing is used for turning normal ferrite into malleable ferrite. It consists of
heating, cooling, and then heating again from 4 to 8 hours.
Conclusion

Annealing is the process of heating up a metal to a particular temperature and then

cooled down. This softens the metal which means it can be cut and shaped more easily. Mild
steel, is heated to a red heat and allowed to cool slowly. However, metals such as aluminium
will melt if heated for too long.