What is annealing?
Related Terms
Heat Treating(HT)
Heat treating is a group of industrial processes that alter the physical and mechanical properties of metal through controlled heating and cooling. It includes annealing, hardening, tempering, and normalizing.
Hardening and Tempering(H&T)
Hardening heats steel above its critical temperature and quenches it rapidly to increase hardness. Tempering then reheats it at a lower temperature to reduce brittleness while retaining strength.
Normalizing
Normalizing is a heat treatment that heats steel above its critical temperature and air-cools it to produce a uniform, fine-grained microstructure. It relieves stress and improves machinability.
Temper
Temper describes the mechanical condition of aluminum after processing — how it was strengthened by work-hardening (-H) or heat treatment (-T). For example, 6061-T6 means the alloy 6061 in a T6 heat-treated temper.