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1. What is grain size and how important is it?
Metals freeze from the liquid state during melting from
many origins and each one of these origins grows until it
bumps into another during freezing. Each of these is a grain
and in castings, they are fairly large. Grains can be refined
(made smaller); by first cold working and then by recrystalliz-
ing at high temperature. Alloy steels, like chrome moly, do not
need any cold work; to do this – reheat treatment will refine
the grain size. But austenitic steels and aluminum require cold
work first. Grain size is very important for mechanical proper-
ties. High temperature creep properties are enhanced by large
grains but good toughness and fatigue require fine grain size
– the finer the better. All ARP bolts and studs are fine grain –
usually ASTM 8 or finer. With 10 being the finest.
2. How do you get toughness vs. brittleness?
With steels, as the strength goes up, the toughness decreas-
es. At too high a strength, the metal tends to be brittle. And
threads accentuate the brittleness. A tool steel which can be
heat-treated to 350,000 psi, would be a disaster as a bolt
because of the threads.
3. Define Rockwell as we use it. Why do we use the
C scale?
A man named Rockwell developed a means of measuring
hardness of metals which was superior to other methods. A
Rockwell hardness tester measures the depth of penetration
into the metal when a load is applied. For hard materials, a
diamond penetrator is used. For soft material, small balls are
used – 1/16˝ or 1/8˝ diameter-and the machine measures the
depth. We use the C scale for the 120,000 psi strength level
and above. The C scale uses the greatest load – 150 Kg. The A
scale uses only a 60 Kg. load but can be correlated with C. It
is necessary to use the A scale for thin sheets because using the
150 Kg load would cause the
diamond to penetrate almost
all the way through.
4. What is
“micro hardness?”
Some parts are too small to
be Rockwell hardness tested.
They are placed in hard plas-
tic and a microscope is used to
place a small indenter into the
metal. Using the microscope
the length of the impression
is measured.
5. How does modulus of
elasticity refer to our
products?
The modulus of elasticity
of all alloy steels is exactly the
same – 30,000,000 psi. This
is true whether it is heat-
treated or not – whether it is
100,000 psi strength level or
300,000 psi. Metals are like
a spring – put a load on them
and they will stretch – double the load and they will stretch
double. This is important in connecting rod bolts because by
measuring the stretch we really are measuring the load. Load
is what is important and measuring stretch of a given size and
configuration bolt will indicate how much load is stretching
the bolt.
6. What are metal carbides and what is their significance?
The strength of all alloy and carbon steels is derived from
the metal carbides formed during heat treat. The carbon in
steels combines with iron, vanadium and with chromium, as
well as many other metal alloy additions to form compounds,
which are a very hard phase within the iron matrix. Tool steels
generally have high carbon content (above .8%) and can be
made very hard – but brittle.
FASTENER TECH
The following material is intended to provide a brief overview of
the metallurgical considerations that, daily, influence the design and
production of the most reliable fasteners in motorsports. It is hoped
that a simple understanding of the knowledge and commitment
required to produce this reliability will make your future fastener
decisions much, much easier.
Metallurgy for the
Non-Engineer
By Russell Sherman, PE
ARP engineers use “Scanning Electron Microscopic” inspection capable of
detecting all elements in the periodic table with atomic numbers greater
than 5 – permitting the acquisition of high resolution imaging.
Metallurgist, Russell Sherman, PE, and stress/dynamics engineer
Dr. Kenneth Foster, PhD, are the heart of ARP’s technical power team.
