Normalizing Furnace

Normalizing is the process of raising the temperature to over 60 ° C (108 °F), above line A3 or line ACM fully into the Austenite range. It is held at this temperature to fully convert the structure into Austenite, and then removed form the heating zone and cooled at room temperature under natural convection. This results in a grain structure of fine Pearlite with excess of Ferrite or Cementite. The resulting material is soft; the degree of softness depends on the actual ambient conditions of cooling. This process is considerably cheaper than full annealing since there is not the added cost of controlled cooling.
The main difference between full annealing and normalizing is that fully annealed parts are uniform in softness (and machine ability) throughout the entire part; since the entire part is exposed to the controlled furnace cooling. In the case of the normalized part, depending on the part geometry, the cooling is non-uniform resulting in non-uniform material properties across the part. This may not be desirable if further machining is desired, since it makes the machining job somewhat unpredictable. In such a case it is better to do full annealing.