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Manufacturing:
Surface Finishing
Heat
Treatment - Annealing
Annealing is the
process for softening materials or to bring
about required changes in properties, such
as machinability, mechanical or electrical
properties, or dimensional stability. The
annealing process consists of heating the
steel to or near the critical temperature
(temperature at which crystalline phase
change occurs) to make it suitable for fabrication.
Annealing is performed to soften steel after
cold rolling, before surface coating and
rolling, after drawing wired rod or cold
drawing seamless tube. Stainless steels
and high alloy steels generally require
annealing because these steels are more
resistant to rolling.A material can be annealed
by heating it to a specific temperature
and then letting the material slowly cool
to room temperature in an oven. This process
is expensive because the oven is unusable
during the cool down process.
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