Case Hardening Steel - What is Case Hardening - Steel Treatments

In the last few weeks we presented some of the methods of case hardening a steel. So what IS Case Hardening of Steel? Good Question - Case Hardening is just a surface layer that is harder and more wear resistant than the core of a part.

For those of you who might have missed the last 3 videos here's a quick review:

Nitriding forms a thin layer of a hard surface of metallic nitride compounds.

Carburizing raises the carbon content of the surface layer to increase the heat treated hardness.

Carbonitriding increases both the carbon and nitrogen content of the surface layer to boost both hardness and the hardenability of the case.

In all three of these processes we change the  chemical composition of the case and perform a heat treatment to achieve the desired properties.