High speed steel is a kind of high hardness, high wear resistance and high heat resistance of tool steel, during quenching even if cooled in the air can also hardened, so also called high speed tool steel or rapid steel. High speed steel process performance is good, strength and toughness cooperate with good, therefore are mainly used for manufacturing complex thin blade and impact resistance of the metal cutting tool, also can make high temperature bearing and cold extrusion dies, etc.

High speed steel heat treatment process is relatively complex, must after annealing, quenching, tempering and so on a series of process. High speed steel normally uses electric furnace production, once adopted powder metallurgy method manufacturing high speed steel, make the carbide are extremely tiny particles evenly distributed on the base, improve the service life.

High speed steel is generally not doing tensile strength test, and give priority to with metallography, hardness test. High speed steel will not be obvious decarburization, high speed steel carbide is very uniform, high speed steel is made of cutting tool, in addition to because it has high hardness, high wear resistance and toughness enough, there is a very important factor is it has a red hardness. (Red hardness refers to the cutting tool in high speed cutting, the blade in the red state’s ability to resist softening).

According to the different purposes of high speed steel, can be divided into two kinds of universal and special purposes. Universal high speed steel: mainly used in the manufacture cutting hardness HB 300 or less metal material cutting tool such as drill, tap, blade, and precision cutting tool such as gear hob, pinion cutter, broach, etc. Special purpose high speed steel: including cobalt high speed steel and superhard high speed steel, mainly used in the manufacture cutting difficult-to-machine metal such as high temperature alloy, titanium alloy and high strength steel, etc, cutter.