Examples include case hardened steels, tool steels, and through-hardened steels.
Description:
Iron and steels play an important role in the world of structural and mechanical metals. Steel, in particular, is very useful because its hardness, wearability and toughness can be altered significantly by heat treating and annealing processes. Tool steels have high hardness (Rc>60) and generally are used with alloying metals such as vanadium, molybdenum and manganese.
Preparation Challenge: Metallographic specimen preparation is relatively straight forward.