Annealing:
The annealing process is conducted by heating the steel parts to slightly above Ac3 or below Ac1 temperature, depending on the composition of the workpiece and the required mechanical properties. It is then held there for necessary time, and then cooled slowly to room temperature.
The benefits of this process includes improving the machinability, stress relieving, and homogenizing the microstructures.
Normalizing:
Normalizing is a form of annealing process that can homogenize the grain structures, reduce the internal stress, and improve the mechanical properties of the workpiece. The steel part is first heated up to A3 or Acm temperature and held there for a period of time to form uniform austenitic microstructures. It is then cooled down in air subsequently to complete the process.
Category
normalizing, full annealing, spheroidization, stress-relief annealing , soft annealing.