Microsoft Word 2012, Källén, M.,-Energy Efficiency Opportunities within the Heat Treatment Industry

1.5  Outline of the Report 

The following chapter named ‘Theory’ gives a brief presentation of steel and the steel 

industry. The heat treatment processes that are relevant for this project are also described. The 

next chapter, named ‘Plant Description’, is a presentation of the plant including process 

equipment, the yearly energy consumption and the outline of the plant. The ‘Method’ chapter 

describes how the measurements were made, the equations used for the calculation and the 

assumptions that had to be made. The remaining chapters include the results from the study, a 

discussion of the results and the conclusions that could be made. 

 

 

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2  Theory 

Steel heat treatment processes are carried out either during or after the production of steel 

objects. These processes are based on the changes in the microstructure when the steel is 

heated or cooled. This chapter presents the basic principles of these changes and of different 

steel heat treatment processes. The chapter also includes the theory and the equations for all 

calculations in this project. 

 

2.1  Steel 

Steel has traditionally been the name for an alloy of iron with up to 2% carbon and small 

amounts of other elements. [5] Today the name has a wider use for many different alloys of 

iron with carbon and for example silicon, manganese, boron, chromium, nickel, molybdenum, 

tungsten, titanium and vanadium. [6] Steel is currently one of the most used construction 

materials and will keep this position for many years to come. [1]