As a regular surface treatment method, carburizing process plays an important role in modern industrial manufacturing. By infiltrating high-carbon compounds into the surface of metal materials, the carburizing process can significantly improve materials’ hardness and wear resistance and improve products’ reliability and service life. In the field of geological exploration and mineral development, rock drilling tools, as a tool for rock drilling, can significantly improve the efficiency and quality of rock drilling by combining with carburizing technology.
What is the carburizing process?
The carburizing process improves material hardness and wear resistance by bringing a gas or liquid containing a high concentration of carbon compounds into contact with the metal material, allowing the carbon atoms to penetrate the material surface. The basic principle is to chemically react to the material surface through high temperatures and high concentrations of carbon atoms to form a surface layer with high carbon concentration. This high-carbon-concentration surface layer increases the hardness of the material and provides better wear and corrosion resistance.
Carburizing method
Carburizing methods include solid carburizing, liquid carburizing, and gas carburizing.
However, along with the progress of technology, solid carburizing is gradually being eliminated. Liquid carburizing application is very few; only gas carburizing is the most widely used.
Gas carburizing is to install the in a sealed carburizing furnace, heat it to 900℃-950℃, drop into the furnace easily decomposed kerosene, benzene, methanol, propane, and other organic liquid or directly through gas, petroleum liquefied gas, natural gas and other artificial carburizing gas, through the reaction to produce activated carbon atoms, so that the surface of steel carburizing. Its advantages are high productivity, better labor conditions, and the carburizing process can be controlled by a computer. The quality and mechanical properties of the carburized layer are better.
The process of carburizing process
The carburizing process usually includes the following key steps:
Preparation
First, a suitable carburizing medium, usually a gas (methane) or liquid (alcohol) containing carbide, needs to be selected. At the same time, prepare the metal material to be treated and its surface cleaned and pre-treated to ensure that the carburizing medium can fully contact the material surface.
Heating and insulation
The metal material and the carburizing medium are placed together in a high-temperature environment and maintained at a specific temperature and time. During this process, the carburizing medium will release carbon atoms and combine them with the vacancies on the surface of the metal material to form a carbide layer.
Cooling and treatment
After a specific carburizing time, the metal material is moved out of the high-temperature environment and suitably cooled. This process helps to fix the position of the carbon atoms on the surface of the metal material and forms a solid carbide layer.
Cleaning and treatment
Finally, the processed material is cleaned and treated to remove residual carburizing media and other impurities to ensure the smoothness and flatness of the surface.
Carburizing is one of the most important processes of chemical heat treatment. Its rational design idea allows the steel surface layer to accept all kinds of loads maximally. through the carbon infiltration and other elements, rock drilling tools can achieve high surface hardness, high wear resistance, fatigue strength, and corrosion resistance. The process not only uses the low carbon steel or alloy steel to replace some of the more expensive high alloy steel but also can maintain the core of low carbon steel after quenching strength and toughness so that the workpiece can withstand impact load. Therefore, it has high practical value. It has the following advantages in combination with rock drilling tools.
Combined advantages of rock drilling tools and carburizing process
Improve hardness and wear resistance
The use environment of rock drilling tools is usually very harsh, and the hardness and wear of rocks have a critical impact on the service life and efficiency of rock drilling tools. Through the carburizing process, the metal material on the surface of rock drilling tools can obtain higher hardness and wear resistance, thus prolonging the service life and improving drilling efficiency.
Improve cutting performance
Rock drilling tools need to overcome the hardness and resistance of the rock during the drilling process, and the carburizing process can form a hard carbide layer on the surface of rock drilling tools to improve the cutting performance and crushing effect to penetrate and break the rock more effectively.
The combination of rock drilling tools and carburizing technology has also achieved remarkable results in practical applications. For example, in oil exploration and extraction, rock drilling tools are subjected to extremely high pressure and wear, and through the carburizing process, the surface of rock drilling tools can form a wear-resistant carbide layer, improving the service life of the drill bit and drilling efficiency.
To sum up, the combination of rock drilling tools and the carburizing process has brought significant improvement and optimization to the field of rock drilling. By carburizing process, hardness, wear resistance, and cutting performance of rock drilling tools are improved, thus improving the drilling efficiency and quality. In future development, we should continue to explore the further combination of rock drilling tools and carburizing technology to meet the ever-growing needs of geological exploration and mineral development and promote innovation and progress in related fields.
