Heat Treat Industry News

July 03, 2008

TECH TIP of the WEEK: Cold work Tool steel D2

The tool steel known as D2 is considered to be a High Carbon High Chromium Cold Work tool steel.

The steel is high in both carbon and chromium for the purpose of forming large volumes of secondary chromium carbides as a result of the precipitation of the carbides during the tempering procedure. This gave rise to a high wear resistance steel.

The history behind the D series in general is, that the D series were originally developed as a possible alternative group of steels to the High Speed Steels and for use as a less expensive source to manufacture cutting tools.

The alternative use as a cutting tool steel was not successful as the steel could not sustain its hardness at high cutting speeds, which developed friction and temperature. The cutting edge simply tempered itself back to the point of premature failure, thus the D group of steel was not successful as a cutting tool steel.

While they do not exhibit good corrosion resistance such as might be expected of say a martensitic stainless steel, they do offer good surface oxidation resistance.

The D series in general do not respond well to normalizing simply because there are some air hardening characteristics of the steel group.

This presentation is focusing on the cold work steel of D2:

To view the D2 Tool Steel article go to:

http://www.heattreatonline.com/D2ToolSteelArticle.pdf

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