Work Hardening
Glossary · Materials & Heat Treatment
At a glance
- Category /
- Materials & Heat Treatment
- Also called /
- strain hardening
- Related /
- 2 terms
- Source /
- Written in the shop
Work hardening is the increase in a metal's hardness caused by deforming it, which in machining means the surface gets harder as it is cut.
Also called: strain hardening
In practice
Austenitic stainless steels and nickel alloys do this aggressively. If a tool rubs instead of cutting, it hardens the surface ahead of itself, and the next pass has to cut through material harder than the original.
Why it matters
It is why the standard advice on stainless is to take a real depth of cut and keep feeding. Light, timid passes are exactly what creates a hardened skin that then destroys the tool.
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