Temper

(1) In heat treatment, reheating hardened steel or hardened cast iron to some temperature below the eutectoid temperature for the purpose of decreasing the hardness and increasing toughness. The process also is sometimes applied to normalized steel. (2) In tool steels, “temper” is sometimes used, but unadvisedly, to denote the carbon content. (3) In nonferrous alloys and in some ferrous alloys (steels that cannot be hardened by heat treatment), the hardness and strength produced by mechanical or thermal treatment, or both, and characterized by a certain structure, mechanical properties, or reduction in area during cold working.

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