Alloy and high alloy steels, as a rule, are hardened in oils to decrease distortion and prevent crack formation. Since oil cools slowly, more alloy elements are added to steels in order to increase their hardenability. Main attention is paid to modifying of oils and super alloying of steels. I believe, we should stop on this way, think for a while and go in opposite direction.
Your thesis, to reduce amount of alloying elements was successfully used in HSLA steels, where you use very small amount of alloying elements. It also depends on application so alloying is very important.
Optimization of chemical composition of steel is the harmony of quality and price. A very important indicator of yesterday, today and tomorrow-even more!
When chemical composition of alloy steel is optimized and intensively quenched, alloy elements in steel can be reduced more than 2 times with simultaneous increasing service life of quenched machine components. More information one can find in:
N.I.Kobasko, Correlation between chemical composition of steel, optimal hardened layer, and optimal residual stress distribution, In a Book "Film and Nucleate Boiling Processes" , STP 1534, K.Narayan Prabhu and Nikolai Kobasko, JAI Guest Editors, ASTM International, W. Conshohocken, 2012, pp. 61 - 80.
SIr,
We are successfully quenching the steels in water for grades like 4145H. The only trick is the control of carbon. we are successful in controlling hardenability of the steel through C.
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