"Cola showed them his proprietary lab setup at SFP Works, LLC., where rollers carried steel sheets through flames as hot as 1100 degrees Celsius and then into a cooling liquid bath.
Though the typical temperature and length of time for hardening varies by industry, most steels are heat-treated at around 900 degrees Celsius for a few hours. Others are heated at similar temperatures for days.
Cola's entire process took less than 10 seconds."
"Using an electron microscope, they discovered that Cola's process did indeed form martensite microstructure inside the steel. But they also saw another form called bainite microstructure, scattered with carbon-rich compounds called carbides.
In traditional, slow heat treatments, steel's initial microstructure always dissolves into a homogeneous phase called austenite at peak temperature, Babu explained. But as the steel cools rapidly from this high temperature, all of the austenite normally transforms into martensite.
"We think that, because this new process is so fast with rapid heating and cooling, the carbides don't get a chance to dissolve completely within austenite at high temperature, so they remain in the steel and make this unique microstructure containing bainite, martensite and carbides," Babu said"
Right, the article says in traditional heat treating, steel is treated for hours, that may be traditional, but has been outdated since at least the 80’s.
It also says the entire process takes less than 10 seconds, but doesn’t say how much steel is produce in those ten seconds, just sheets of steel, through flames as hot as 1100 C.
While not going into too much detail, open flames generally cause problems in heat treating of steel, in production, and while not open flames the steel in modern production plants is already subjected to temperatures that high.
The steel is then cooled within seconds producing 30-90 meters of steel every 10 seconds.
Using this current process steels can already be produced containing the same phase structures described in the article, as it does not got into much detail. Also as is, steels can be produced with such strength that most industries, auto included, are not able to use them as they do not have the capability to form them.
Another question I would have is if his process would be cost effective enough to be usable if he wasn’t using water baths.
As I said before there isn’t really enough info in the article to make much of a decision, but I’ll trust that this is an actual breakthrough.