Cryogenics and joints

While axle shaft u-joints is a hot topic I have been wondering also about cryogenic treated axles and joints. There is a company here in the Denver area that is now doing this treatment for some wheelers in the area and I wanted some of the brains here to tell me what they think.I am pc illit. so I can only get you there by direction. Go to www.colorado4x4.org Go to Commercial Corner and go to the cryogenic thread. It is a long read, but JP DeBauge ends up answering some ?? about the treatment. Tell me what you think.
Crunch

After reading some of the articles that were provided, I know understand how they cryogenic temper. The general idea is to force the molecules that make up the "material", to become more compact, as can be seen in one of the pictures provided.

They're was a part that talked about Caterpillar doing some research and finding no conclusive results to make cryogenic temering a better method. However, the person who stated that didn't give any references to support that statement.
From the image provided, I would say that it works, but I don't know if that image came from a reputable source. Keep searching, we'll find the answer.

I have quite a few Rover friends who are running cryoed axles on their setups from GBR...these guys are running 37's and 38s on 29 spline axles....seem to do ok.

Hi. my name is Mark, and I play with knives . . .

Cryogenics is pretty normal in the hi performance knife market - the makers using high carbon alloys find a reduction in grain size, higher abrasion resistance, and better fracture resistance. Gun makers don't temper, and don't see as much improvement. They are still out in the jury room discussing the evidence.

I can see benefits in reducing stress fractures - at the right price. Engine builders have been doing cranks in dry ice for years. Why not axles? In fact, for about $15 in dry ice, you can do it yourself. There are lots of sites and recipes on the web to show how. Including home anodizing aluminum parts.

Google around before Microsoft buys 'em and upgrades the program . . .

We do deep cryogenics.

Without getting into a long and boring metallurgical geekfest, all the mechanisms of deep cryogenics are truly not well understood. Most all metallurgical stuff was figured out by our Grandpas between the 1920 and 40s. Grandpa didn’t figure this one out for us.

We do know some about what happens. Steel is a crystalline material (it doesn’t contain molecules) that when fabricated contains two things, iron and carbide. When you heat it up, the two things dissolve (kinda like sugar dissolves in water) and this creates a phase of just one thing -- austenite. If you want the steel to be strong, you quench it and it locks the carbon into another new phase (martensite), but under some conditions, not all the austenite kicks over.

One thing the deep cryogenics does is kick over all the austenite to the strong martensite stuff. It also is known to create nucleation sites (little starter areas) for some of the carbon to precipitate out of the strong martensite. The steel wants to go back to two things – the iron and carbide. It’s gonna do it anyway when you temper it after quenching. What’s unique about these little nucleation sites is the carbide that falls out is very very tiny and well distributed. This is known as Eta carbide..

There’s lots of debates on how and why and all that. Basically, we don’t really know. What we do know is that there’s lots of empirical evidence that certain materials and applications show good improvement. There’s also materials and applications where it don’t do squat.

There's been cold treatments for a long time... stuff to -150°F.. in order to get these special nucleation sites, you gotta go lower than that...

We also do a lot of development work with Bigfoot... About a year ago, we started doing the deep cryogenics on some axles and u-joint carriers... Now, they did do some re-design... but they've yet to frag one since...

Brake rotors really shine.... as do valve springs...

Some voodoo... some science...

Oh.. by the way.. if you can SEE any difference in the microstructure from deep crynogenics... someone BOTCHED the original heat treatment. Good treatments cannot be detected by conventional metallography.

Rob...GREAT repy, well said!

Like...WOW MAN...like, I totally thought you were talkin' about somethin' else man...like...WOW! :greensmok

Jes

Jes said:

Like...WOW MAN...like, I totally thought you were talkin' about somethin' else man...like...WOW! :greensmok

Jes

Click to expand...

Me too. But then, all my joints do when they get cold is ache...

I have personal knowledge that valvesprings used in extreme lift, very high RPM engines (such as Pro Stock bike) when subjected to proper cryo-treat have life cycle improvement of better than 3x compared to untreated springs.

Very well put Robs...another excellent example of why i like this site...

I've had several things treated, new set of all steel XJ brake rotors and rear drums. I also have had a Remington 700PSS treated and it's grouping did improve quite a bit, wish I could shoot as good as the machine rest can .
I have not put the cryoed rotors or drums on yet as I had the rotors replaced under a recall almost 2 years ago but when it's time to do them I got em.
The people that did my stuff in Orlando several years ago, can't find the link and I need to go back over my receipts to find their name, cryo one IIRC but no hits on that url anymore. Took 4 or 5 days.
One thing they did tell/show me was the amount of parts from NASCAR and CART teams they were doing, trailer loads of engine, suspension parts which was what made me hit a parts store and pick up what I wanted done, drop them off and head back to disneyland for vacation. Shipped the PSS down a few weeks later along with a new barrel for my gold cup for treatment. Did not notice any real improvement on the Gold Cup, still shot pretty much the same 1/2 in group at 50ft from a machine rest.

So basically, the jury is still out on the application of four wheel drive parts per say. But with what I've read here, alot of people are believing in it, and it might be worth having things I have around here treated that are going on my Jeep. Things like an EZ Locker, a ring and pinion, a new set of 297 joints and shafts, knuckles hubs and rotors and such. I am also curious about the thought that it might actually weaken some parts that have some sort of heat treatment already. Who knows?

robs, thank you for the explanation. Since you do this, what would be a fair price to pay for such a process and what would be some questions to ask the people doing the process (what do I want them to tell me)?

I wonder if I can get my whole Jeep done

Thanks for the responses,
Crunch