Anonymous

The short answer is that a fast cooling will produce a steel that is hard, but somewhat brittle and a slower cooling will produce a steel that is tough, but not as hard. But as others have noted, heat treating is a whole science to itself

Anonymous

Tempering steel for the required purpose involves cooling the red hot material at a specific rate. Forging iron during cooling helps increase its hardness and durability. In general, rapid cooling increases brittleness.

Anonymous

You can indeed find entire libraries devoted to that very question.

Anonymous

Cooling steel time with water is done instantly, that was the old technique to strength the steel to make sword.

Anonymous

The heat treatment of metals by Heating and cooling to harden them is a science. There is a whole section of information at the library and and online under metallurgy.

Anonymous

yes. this is called heat treatment of metal and used for changing properties of metal.