Understanding and Measuring Decarburization
Understanding the forces behind decarburization is the first step toward minimizing its detrimental effects. Decarburization is detrimental to the wear life and fatigue life of steel heat-treated components. This article explores some factors that cause decarburization while concentrating on its measurement. In most production tests, light microscopes are used to scan the surface of a polished and etched cross-section to find what appears to be the greatest depth of total carbon loss (free ferrite depth, or FFD) and the greatest depth of combined FFD and partial loss of carbon to determine the maximum affected depth (MAD).
The articles and presentations that can be down-loaded from this web site are based upon work done by GFV while employed at Bethlehem Steel (1967-1983), Carpenter Technology (1983-1996), Buehler Ltd. (1996-2009) and Struers (2009-Present) and from the authors consulting work for companies such as, Latrobe Steel, Scot Forge, etc., and from his litigation work. GFV's bylined articles appearing in various issues of the ASM Handbook series have been listed here courtesy of ASM International, Materials Park, Ohio.