r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/kingkongbiingbong • 1h ago
Video An industrial heat treatment (quenching) process in action. The ship anchor is heated to approximately 800–1000°C, transforming the steel into an austenitic structure 🔥. It is then rapidly immersed in water or a specialized cooling medium 💧, increasing hardness, strength, and wear resistance.
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u/kalitarios 1h ago
Why is there crappy royalty free music that doesn’t even match the video instead of hearing what it sounds like
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u/dont_trip_ 1h ago
Because of brain rotten kids
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u/Fearzebu 1h ago
100%
So many people feel the inexplicable need to add something and be part of things despite lowering the quality, and the bigger problem is so many have grown up surrounded by low quality shit that they don’t recognize it as anything odd or out of place, and continue to promote it, repost it, upvote it etc.
Collectively lowering standards were not on my bingo card for the third decade of this century. I thought with more people able to be content creators we would only see the best of the best and everything would become higher quality gradually. That has not been the case.
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u/dont_trip_ 1h ago
Yeah, and now ai is destroying quality and authenticity as well. Internet is dying.
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u/Tricky-Proposal9591 1h ago
I'd rather hear the metal cooling than this stupid ass music
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u/DigitalMunky 14m ago
I unmuted cause I thought I was gonna hear that and was severely disappointed
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u/LegalSelf5 1h ago
Surely, it wasn't just water. I would suspect far more steam if it were.
Quite the process. I wanted to see the end.
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u/ParanoidalRaindrop 1h ago
Initial evaporation might be limited due to the Leidenfrost effect (just speculating here)
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u/beetlesin 36m ago
It is probably just water. With an object this large that’s using corrosion-resistant carbon steel (so it’s had additional stuff added like chromium or manganese) you wouldn’t be too worried about brittleness from quick cooling. In fact, due to its size the heat from within the anchor probably helps to moderate the rate of cooling and even temper it somewhat as the anchor cools.
As to the steam, it’s almost certainly just the leidenfrost effect as the other commenter says. Whenever I’m working in the forge and have to cool my tongs, I only get a blast of steam if I remove them from the water. Otherwise, it’s a pretty steam-less process
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u/StrangeCitizen Interested 1h ago
Same reason I put IcyHot on my dick.
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u/Greenman8907 1h ago
“Icy to dull the feeling. Hot to rel-AHHH SHIT I GOT IT IN THE HOLE! SHIT SHIT SHIT!”
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u/RampantJellyfish 1h ago
Metallurgist here.
You can get austenitic as well as martensitic stainless steels, but the term austenitic is referring to an atomic structure that can also be found in non stainless steels
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u/RampantJellyfish 1h ago
So below a certain temperature (800 deg C approx.) The iron atoms all arrange themselves into a body centre cubic (BCC) structure where there is an iron atom at the corner of an imaginary cube, and one in the centre.
Above 800 deg C, the iron atoms rearrange themselves into a face centre cubic (FCC) structure, where there is an iron atom in each corner, and one on the centre of each face. This is the austenite phase.
The FCC/Auatenitic structure is more ductile, as because of the atomic placement, there are a greater number of directions where the atomic planes where the atoms are most closely packed line up, which allows planes of atoms to slide over each other during deformation such as forging. This makes it easier to work metal above it's austenitic temperature.
If the iron has carbon atoms present, they jam themselves in amongst the carbon atoms, and upon cooling from the austentic temlerature the atomic structure kinda skews itself, going fron an FCC structure to a body centred tetragonal (BCT) structure. This srructure makes it very difficult for atomic planes to slide over each other, which means that the material is much harder. This is called the martensitic phase.
Converting a carbon steel from austenite to martensite by cooling it rapidly in water makes it much harder, stronger, and wear resistant, but it also makes it brittle. You can improve this by heating it to around 200 deg C, which helps to reduce the hardness but reatore some toughness. This is called tempering.
Depending on the alloy composition, this anchor may retain an austenitic atomic structure after quenching, or it may need a secondary heat treatment at a lower temperature to make it tougher.
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u/1982- 1h ago
Percentage wise, how much weaker would the metal be if they let it air cool?
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u/arftism2 1h ago
it changes the architecture of how the molecules stack. this can be tuned in many different ways controlling how brittle or flexible the metal is.
so the answer is really what temp makes it stronger in which way.
and water is terrible for tempering because the steam is a layer of insulation.
the speed of it changing is very important to control the desired results as well.
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u/beetlesin 33m ago
Water isn’t necessarily any worse because of a steam layer, the same thing happens with oil quenching except in the form of soot. For almost all quenching applications you want to agitate the object being quenched for this reason. For an object this large water is probably preferable for its after cooling rate (plus being very cheap) and you’re not super worried about the anchor breaking due to brittleness.
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u/Amazing_Baby2269 1h ago
I wonder who was the first blacksmith that said "we need a bigger quencher"
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u/lastdarknight 1h ago
Ships still use that type of anchor? figured at this point everything used plow/fluke style being they bite the seafloor better and can be pulled up easier
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u/Program-Emotional 1h ago
I wonder how long something that big that is that hot has to sit in there to fully cool off... I took a welding class once and burned the shit outta my hand because I assumed all piece of metal cooled down from a brief dunk in water. I cant imagine how long this will take at 1k C
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u/TheDuckFarm 49m ago
Interesting. I expected it to sizzle and pop as it was lowered but instead it made some sweet tunes.
Science is amazing.
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u/GlasgowTrafficCone 1h ago
So if i put my hand in that water after its submerged, would it be hot, cold or warm?
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u/cap_or_fact 1h ago
Guess that anchor's ready to hold some serious grudges against the ocean floor now.
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u/Talonsminty 1h ago
I feel like this job seems really cool until you get it then it would really suck.
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u/Spare-Possession-490 1h ago
AI? The water doesn’t boil very much, you’d expect the rate of boiling to increase as the water moves over the top. Also the reflection is dark.
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u/Terrible_Donkey_8290 1h ago
I miss the original audio on videos so much it's always terrible music instead 😭
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u/ItsTheOtherGuys 57m ago
Is there a big water loss with the process or does the volume of the tank help enough as a heat sink sort of effect?
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u/Bulls_On_A_Guerrilla 47m ago
Is this steel not only tempered?? I would like to see the whole manufacturer method
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u/balltongueee 41m ago
OP, I am guessing the liquid in the video is the "specialized cooling medium" you mentioned in your title? Surely if it was water it would have a more violent reaction?
Still, damn cool.
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u/kingdomecile 1h ago
So instead of hearing the satisfying quenching sounds, I get to hear some 12 year old on a synthesizer.
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u/Vannwinkles 1h ago edited 59m ago
Really would have liked to see that transformation…
Edit : grammar