Heat treatment of molds and dies and relevant quality issues

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the situation of quality control in the heat treatment of tools, molds and dies. Several specific aspects of tool steels metallurgy are considered, enabling the understanding of how critical is the heat treatment quality to the final performance of tools. In spite of this fact, the traditional controls in tool steels heat treatment are considered to be ineffective in warranting a proper performance. Therefore, a methodology based on the process control is presented.