Effect of Heat Treatment on the Resulting Dimensional Characteristics of the C45 Carbon Steel after Turning

Abstract

The presented article deals with the influence of the heat treatment of C45 steel on the surface quality after turning. Turning is a machining technology used to prepare specific geometrical characteristics of surface and dimensional quality. In the present paper, the same turning conditions were used for the turning treatment of differently heat-treated steels. The soft annealed state, normalized state, hardened state, quenched and tempered at 530 °C state and quenched and tempered at 660 °C state have been analyzed. By using this approach, it has been possible to evaluate the effects of hardening and machining on the resulting parameters after turning (roughness, cylindricity and circularity). The highest hardness was observed in the steel after the hardening process (694 ± 9 HV 10). The hardening has negatively influenced the surface quality. The high hardness was related to martensite formation and caused a damage to the cutting edge of the cut insert used, leading to a significant change in geometrical accuracy. The cylindricity change achieved 0.15 ± 0.03 mm which was significantly higher compared to the theoretical value of the diameter of the machined steel bar. An inaccuracy was also observed in diameter dimension. These inaccuracies were caused by the wear of the cutting edge of the tool used in cutting parameters setting.