ANNEALING

Soft annealing

During soft annealing, a steel material is typically heated to just below the so-called transformation point A1 in order to achieve low strength and high formability.

Making materials machinable again

Soft annealing reduces the hardness of metals while improving machinability and formability. It is suitable for steels as well as copper and brass alloys.

The aim of this heat treatment process is to make the material as soft as possible and to facilitate further processing steps such as rolling, wire drawing or punching.

For steels with a carbon content of more than 0.4 per cent by mass, an improvement in machinability is achieved. The process is not suitable for use before induction hardening.

The process temperature for steel materials depends largely on the carbon content and is between 650 and 800°C. The components are heated in an inert gas atmosphere and, depending on the desired target state, held for several hours and then slowly cooled. As a rule, no structural transformation takes place during this heat treatment process.

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