By gum it's cowd! (Translation: Lancashire, 'It's surprisingly cold.') - Cryogenic treatments for hard wearing engineering materials

Cryogenic treatments are sub-zero heat treatments that use readily available and environmentally sustainable industrial gases to enhance the mechanical properties (i.e. strength and wear resistance) of a variety of alloys, such as steels. This brings significant benefits across a range of sectors, including manufacturing and transport, by ensuring that tools and components last longer. This leads to increased energy efficiency, reduced consumption of materials and enhanced productivity and performance.However, cryogenic treatments are prevented from being more widely adopted due to a lack of understanding of precisely how and under what conditions materials change, at a microstructural level, during the process. This experiment will establish the effects that cryogenic soaking temperature, holding time and hot tempering have on the structure and properties of the material.