Heat Treatment In The Manufacture Of All Metals

Heat Treatment In The Manufacture Of All Metals

One and a third billion tons of steel are produced every year in the world and for this reason alone it is hardly surprising that some of the world's richest people are steel moguls just as the others are mainly involved in oil, the internet and telecommunications.

The importance to mankind of metals is reflected in the fact that we even call whole eras of history by metals. The Bronze Age followed the Stone Age and this in turn is followed by the Iron Age. The discovery of all the elements in the world covers a vast number of years and even today it is probable that there are still some more to be found. There are 118 recognised elementsand the metals are nearly all used in some way to benefit humankind with iron being the most abundant.

Fire is the most important part of turning these metals from lumps of earth and rock into the finished article. Very few metals are pure enough straight fromground to even resemble the colour they will become after heat treatment and removal of impurities.

Steel is produced in four or five main types depending upon the intended usages. It is highly flexible and can be as malleable as a thin sword is or as hard and rigid as a girder. It can be heavy plates of shell proof armour and it can be a tiny fine medical needle.

Some years ago a manufacturer of steel needles sent the smallest thinnest needle they could manufacture to a rival needle company. This second company sent the needle back with a note saying, 'herewith your needle; you will find ours inside it.' The first company has never bragged about their progress again any time since.

Even after steel has been produced and is in a company's stock supply it can have its properties changed with heat treatment. From induction hardening to stress relieving and tempering all of these methods include the simple process of heating the metal and cooling it. This fine tuning of metals is nowhere more pronounced than with aluminium a highly versatile lightweight metal which has many applications with very different grades and sometimes the addition of other metals like zinc. Aircraft have to have a particular type of aluminium for the obvious lightness and also of a type which is going to be resistant to fire.

Catalytic converters on all cars use as the catalyst the precious metals of platinum, palladium and Rhodium all on a substrate of Aluminium Oxide.

The alchemists looking to make gold from base metals all realised how a metal changed its usefulness and appearance with the application of hot and cold and dreamt of finding a metal that would turn to gold with that mix of fire and water.

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