Martensitic Stainless Steels, example:

• 410, 416, 420, 440B, 440C

Quenching can be used to harden these steels (like carbon steels) in order to improve their mechanical properties.

Other treatments are :

• Stress relieving;
• Oil or vacuum quenching;
• Tempering;
• Cryogenic treatment;
• Nitriding (after depassivation).

Ferritic Stainless Steels, examples :

• 405, 430

Full annealing followed by air quenching gives these steels a minimum hardness, a maximum ductility and a good resistance to corrosion.

Precipitation-Hardening Stainless Steels, examples :

• 15-5PH, 17-4PH

These steels are hardened through solution annealing followed by an aging process.

Austenitic stainless steels, examples :

• 304, 316, 316L, 317, 321

Cold working rather than quenching is used for hardening these steels.

Other treatments are :

• Stress relieving;
• Solution annealing;
• Nitriding (after depassivation).

Some superalloys, examples :

• Haynes, Nimonic, Incoloy, Inconel, René, Waspaloy

As a result of our many years of experience serving high technology industries, we have successfully developed several procedures to treat superalloys, notably :

• Stress relieving;
• Annealing;
• Solution annealing and quenching;
• Aging.