Understanding the Benefits of Austempering
“Austempering is essentially an arrested quench process designed to produce a bainitic microstructure having properties that combine high hardness with toughness, resulting in a resistance to brittle fatigue.” –Daniel Herring, Industrial Heating Magazine. (Photo of Austempered ASI 1055)
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For over forty years we here at Kowalski Heat Treating have been recommending austempering as the perfect solution to many of our customer’s PIA (pain in the @#$) jobs. More often than not, it’s the ideal distortion management solution for specialty jobs such as shafts, pins, saw blades, pistons, flat plates, brake discs, clutch parts, large stampings and other sensitive work requiring high hardness, longer-lasting toughness and increased strength.
Our K-Salt Division, the largest rack salt-to-salt facility in the Midwest, enables us to better control the cooling rate of crack sensitive steels and other alloys. Some of the benefits to our customers include:
• Our custom design fixturing team can quickly and efficiently implement new fixtures to maintain your tight tolerances while achieving the optimum heat treating cycle possible.
• Whether custom specialty distortion-free austempering treatments or higher volume marquenching batch work, our system engineers can help reduce tool-up times and fixture down times, giving you an edge in reducing costs and shortening your production run times.
• We can process up to 50,000 pounds per day, including “PIA” rack jobs or parts up to 36” in diameter and/or 40″ long.
• Austempering is ideal for Automotive, Power Transmission, Construction Equipment, Heavy Industry, Truck & Bus, Distortion Sensitive Forgings, ADI Processing, Government & DOD, FCC Licensed Guns/Firearms, Mining & Off Road Parts, Mower Blades, Outdoor Power Equipment, Stampings and Tool & Die jobs.
To better understand the benefits of Austempering, I went back to one of my favorite articles on the subject (originally published in 2005) and contacted “The Heat Treat Doctor” Daniel Herring, from Industrial Heating magazine. We got his “ok” along with the publishers of Industrial Heating magazine to repost part of his article. Read the full article HERE.
Enjoy – (and call me about your pesky PIA Jobs – we’re ready to help!!)
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