Quench hardening brass?

[spsalso]

It's my belief that one cannot quench harden brass.

I've just run into someone who insists it can be done. He says he's done it. "And my Professor of Metallurgy at Stevens even mentioned it in class when we were discussing brass vs. bronze."

Can someone come up with some documentation for my views?

Please.


spsalso

 

[mfgenggear]

Best bet is to google a particular brass data sheet from the manufacture.
To my knowledge brass work hardens. During shaping and forming. Sheet metal brass is work harden to 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full hard.
Generally after forming it requires annealing to draw it back. In annealed condintion for further forming.

I believe there is an alloyed brass that can be precipitation harden. Not quenched.

 

[MagBen]

basically quenching brasses softens material. Zinc is a substitution solid solution in copper. for some specially designed brasses with additions of Fe, Ti etc. can be precipitate hardened, but that includes quench + temper.
Commercial Naval brass is a two-phase (α +β') with 0.5-1.0 tin addition, this brass might be able to precipitate hardened, while yellow brass single-phase material cannot.

 

[TugboatEng]

I think that carbon steel is very unique in it's ability to be hardened by quenching. I can't think of any other common examples at the moment.

 

[isoca]

If you look at the Cu-Zn phase diagram you will observe that there are no phase changes for Zn contents less than 30/35%. Therefore there will be no quench hardening. For higher concentrations of Zn, hardening phases may appear but strictly it would not be hardening by quenching