Embrittlement during Tempering of Steels | Metallurgy

Normally, as the tempering progresses, the hardness and the strength decrease, but the ductility and impact strength increase. But in certain steels, there is an unexpected decrease of the impact strength in certain ranges of temperatures as schematically illustrated in Fig. 7.13. This indicates that there are two main types of embrittlement during tempering: 1. Tempered martensite embrittlement (TME), 2. [...]