5.5 Effect of Heating and Cooling on Steel
Understanding the effect of heating and cooling on steel is important, not only because these effects
are used to enhance the properties of the steel as mentioned above, but also because the welding
operation involves similar effects, and final properties of the weld and its soundness can depend on the
rate at which the weld cools after the weld metal has been deposited.
5.5.1 Slow Cooling of Steel from Above 910°C
From the previous sections, you have learned that:
- In pure iron at temperatures above 910°C, the atoms are arranged in a face centered cubic
(FCC) pattern or lattice. On slow cooling at 910°C, the arrangement of the atoms changes
to a body centered cubic (BCC) lattice and stays like that on further cooling to room
temperature (see Figure 5.5).