Technical Terms

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Q

• Quenching

  This is a rapid way of bringing a metal back to room temperature after heat treatment (such as annealing, normalizing or stress relieving) to prevent the cooling process from dramatically changing the metal's microstructure. Quenching results in the hardening of steel at the same temperature that full annealing does. Certain steels may be “Quenched and Tempered” which involves heating the material and then rapidly cooling it in water, oil, forced air or inert gases such as nitrogen.