The cryogenic process is a continuation of the heat treatment process which ends at room temperature. The aim is to maintain the martensitic transformation by decreasing to low temperatures and reducing the austenitic amount as much as possible. Cryogenic treatment is performed in specially designed processor controlled chambers.
Change of Wear Life Increase in Cryogenic Steels;
Five different tool steels subjected to heat treatment were subjected to abrasive wear test after sub-zero treatment and cryogenic treatment. Table 1 contains these test results. The subzero process improved the abrasion resistance of steels from 18% to 104%, but the test results in cryogenic treated steels showed an improvement of 105% to 560%.
