Effect of cryogenic treatment on properties of materials: A review

Abstract

The objective of this review paper is to introduce Cryogenic temperature effect on different properties of materials. Results showed that cryogenic operation improves properties like hardness, fatigue strength, tensile strength, toughness and resistance to wear in comparison to conventional operations. The improvement is a result of microstructural changes at cryogenic temperature which helps in conversion of austenite to martensite and carbide nucleation. The results also showed that doing tempering before or after cryogenic operation has significant influence on material properties which helps to achieve better carbide distribution. Different heat treatment sequences which involve tempering before or after Deep Cryogenic Treatment (DCT), provides varied results. Soaking time at cryogenic temperature also has an important role in refinement of microstructure and affect material properties.

Effect of Cryogenic Treatment on Tribological and Surface Properties of 3D Printed Thermoplastic Polyurethane

“…Deep cryogenic treatment (henceforth DCT) is used to improve materials' mechanical and tribological characteristics. Subjecting materials to a sub-zero temperature of around -196 • C refines the microstructure (12) . Even after bringing the sample back to ambient temperature, the properties obtained after DCT are preserved (12) .…”

“…Subjecting materials to a sub-zero temperature of around -196 • C refines the microstructure (12) . Even after bringing the sample back to ambient temperature, the properties obtained after DCT are preserved (12) . A vast amount of literature review on the subject has stressed that the DCT of polymers causes significant changes in their mechanical characteristics (13) .…”

“…The cracks are perpendicular to the direction of wear.It is evident from Figure4that a higher ET, lower PS, lower LT, and 45 • /135 • offered lower mass wear. This behavior is attributable to higher ET offering higher flowability and better material extrusion from the nozzle(12) . Lower PS ensured the smooth flow of the material by avoiding any turbulence during extrusion.…”

Cryogenic Treatment of Martensitic Steels: Microstructural Fundamentals and Implications for Mechanical Properties and Wear and Corrosion Performance

“…They have focussed on specific topics and materials for which cryogenic treatment is used, for example, CT of cutting tools [5,83], the impact of CT on wear performance [4], and the use of CT in the automotive [84] and textile [85] industries. There are also general articles on the effects of CT on the microstructure and properties of metallic materials [1,2,42,[86][87][88][89][90][91][92] and their weldments [93], as well as non-metallic [94,95] materials. Some of the general articles, however, were published many years ago (e.g., 2001 [1], 2008 [87]) or lack in comprehensiveness (short review papers [2,88,90]).…”

“…There were also more comprehensive review articles published more recently but in lesser amounts. They cover a wide range of mechanical and other properties that are affected by cryogenic treatments, but the described microstructural alterations are limited to only the more complete austenite-to-martensite transformation and carbides precipitation [42,86,89,91,92]. A comprehensive review that covers not only the effect of cryogenic treatments but also the austenitising, quenching (prior to CT operations), and tempering of the microstructures (retained austenite transformation, martensitic microstructures, carbides precipitation, and formation of additional carbides), and their impact on the properties of iron alloys whose austenite is not completely transformed to martensite during conventional heat treatment (CHT) is still missing.…”