case-hardening STEELS
How they “work”
At the same time, at the core, the structure obtained will have a lower hardness but will be very tough.
Case-hardening steels are mainly used for the production of gear wheels, gearboxes, camshafts and pinions.
Types of case-hardening steels steels available at Gieffeacciai
Non-alloyed case-hardening steels
The choice of case-hardening steel must take into account the size of the part to be made and the stresses to which it will be subjected.
For small, low-stress parts, a carbon steel such as C15 can be used.
Gieffeacciai is able to provide this quality also in the leaded version, C15RPb.
Alloy case-hardening steels
For higher stresses and thicker of the part, it is necessary to switch to alloy case-hardening steels: to 16MnCr5 or, for higher hardenability, to 20MnCr5. Similar to the last two steels is 16NiCr4, which due to the presence of nickel, has a higher toughness, a property which in the case of 20NiCrMo2-2 can also be achieved with larger workpieces. 17NiCrMo6-4 is the case-hardening steel par excellence: its chemical composition allows the best performance to be obtained even with large workpieces.
Gieffeacciai also has the possibility of supplying two of these grades in their leaded version, 16NiCrS4Pb and 17NiCrMoS6-4Pb, which guarantee better machinability.