The Introduction of High Carbon Steel and Its Properties

High carbon steel is often called as tool steel, with the carbon content ranging from 0.60% to 1.70%, which can be quenched and tempered. The hammers, crowbars and some others are made of steel with the carbon content of 0.75%. Some cutting tools such as drills, taps, and reamers are made of steel with the carbon content from 0.90% to 1.00%.

After proper heat treatment or cold drawing hardening, high carbon steel has high strength and hardness, high elastic limit and fatigue limit with a good cutting performance. But meanwhile, the welding performance and cold plastic deformation ability are poor. Due to the high carbon content, cracks are prone to appear during water quenching. So two-liquid quenching is often used, and oil quenching is used for small cross-section parts. This type of steel is generally used in the state of tempering or normalizing at medium temperature or surface quenching after quenching.

Performance features

Advantages:

1. High hardness (HRC60-65) and good wear resistance can be obtained after heat treatment.

2. Moderate hardness in the annealed state with good machinability.

3. The raw materials are easy to get with low production cost.

Disadvantages:

1. Poor thermal hardness. When the working temperature of the tool is higher than 200°C, its hardness and wear resistance drop sharply.

2. Low hardenability. During water quenching, the diameter of complete quenching is generally only 15-18mm; the maximum diameter or thickness of complete quenching during oil quenching is only about 6mm, which is easy to deform and crack.

The high carbon steel uses are mainly to make springs and wear-resistant parts. Because the performance is opposite to low carbon steel, the use of high-carbon steel is quite different from the low carbon steel. Carbon tool steel is a high carbon steel that basically does not add alloying elements. It is also a type of steel with low cost, good cold and hot workability, and a wide range of use among tool steels. Its carbon content is between 0.65% and 1.35%, which is specially used for making tools. The density of high carbon steel is 7.81g/cm³ and it can be used for the production of fishing gear.