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  • About TMT
    • Who We Are
    • How We Heat Treat
  • HT Processes
    • Age Hardening
    • Annealing
    • Auxiliary Processes
    • Carbonitriding
    • Carburizing
    • Induction
    • Large Capacity
    • Normalizing
    • Plasma Nitriding
    • Post Weld Heat Treat
    • Solution Annealing
    • Stress Relieving
    • Through Hardening
    • Need Guidance?
  • Quality
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Thermal Modification Technologies
  • Home
  • About TMT
    • Who We Are
    • How We Heat Treat
  • HT Processes
    • Age Hardening
    • Annealing
    • Auxiliary Processes
    • Carbonitriding
    • Carburizing
    • Induction
    • Large Capacity
    • Normalizing
    • Plasma Nitriding
    • Post Weld Heat Treat
    • Solution Annealing
    • Stress Relieving
    • Through Hardening
    • Need Guidance?
  • Quality
  • Contact Us

Annealing

Annealing is a group of processes in which a material is softened to improve machinability, allow for cold work (bending, rolling, pressing), improve electrical conductivity, reduce residual stress, or increase dimensional stability.  Parts are heated and held at temperature depending on part geometry, material, and desired microstructure.  Some forms of annealing will also include a controlled cooling rate.
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Industries
  • Aerospace
  • Tooling
  • Chemical
  • Oil and Gas
  • Marine
  • General Machining
Related Processes
Solution Annealing
Induction
Normalizing
Common Alloys
  • Most materials can be annealed.  Annealing is not to be confused with Solution Annealing.
TMT Equipment/Variations
  • Parts can be annealed in a vacuum or an air atmosphere.  For higher temperature annealing, parts will become scaled if annealed in air.
  • Sub-Critical annealing, also called “sub-annealing” and “process annealing” is a cost-effective method of annealing steel.  Parts are heated to below the critical point of steel and held.  This will greatly reduce the residual stress and hardness of the material.  As the parts do not need to have a slow controlled cool from the annealing temperature, the cycle time is much reduced.
  • Full annealing is the process in which steel is heated above its critical point and then cooled slowly in a furnace.  It is a much more time intensive process than sub-critical annealing so is used when maximal removal of residual stress and hardness is needed.
  • Spherodize Annealing is an annealing process for high carbon steels where parts are heated and cooled in a manner to form a soft ferritic matrix with spherical carbides.  It is generally used for parts which will subsequently be subjected to large amounts of cold work.
  • Induction Annealing/Normalizing is a selective heat treating process where processing can be limited to certain areas of the part.  See Induction Heat Treat for more information.
Applications
  • Used often prior to machining to reduce hardness. 
  • Also frequently used to relieve stress from significant cold work.​ ​
Associated Specs/Standards
  • ASTM A668
  • MIL 1684
What To Consider When Specifying
  • Material
  • Furnace Atmosphere
  • Spec (if required)

Have more technical questions?  Contact a TMT engineer here.
Thermal Modification Technologies | 19830 SW Teton Ave., Tualatin, OR 97062 | Phone: 503.654.6511 | Fax 503.653.1217
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  • Home
  • About TMT
    • Who We Are
    • How We Heat Treat
  • HT Processes
    • Age Hardening
    • Annealing
    • Auxiliary Processes
    • Carbonitriding
    • Carburizing
    • Induction
    • Large Capacity
    • Normalizing
    • Plasma Nitriding
    • Post Weld Heat Treat
    • Solution Annealing
    • Stress Relieving
    • Through Hardening
    • Need Guidance?
  • Quality
  • Contact Us