Reading through this, Lynn is making a very important point, which you (cheers) are missing. He is making this point from (sometimes bitter) experience. From what you write would suggest that you are not long out of university and still flushed with the impetousness of youth we all sometimes miss so wistfully.



Laying things out on the table



1. People selling this to the hot rod community don't quote tests that stand up to scrutiny. Well, that's nothing new. Look at any aftermarket hop up product, even the ones that work.



2. Nascar use it. There must be something there. The teams don't publish data. Again nothing new. If the team has anything that might give them a 0.05 second advantage per lap, or a reduced chance of failure during a 500mile race, they keep it to their chests.



3. Lynn is right in that there will be parts in your robot arm that you buy as a black box. As long as the black box meets its spec, you really don't know or care if its cryotreated, heat treated or sat on by a rhino, as long as it meets the specs.



4. The physical properties of certain alloys change when they get cold. You must be able to find stories of Guys in northern canada or alaska who have had a chassis crack hitting a curb on a -30 day. If not look up some of the northern towns in siberia. Gets to 50C below, and a pothole will cause a truck to fall apart. I do not know why, but would be interested to find out.



5. It is right to be sceptical. Too much snake oil out there.



Keep an open mind. Research, make phone calls. The truth must be out there...

 

Well said Bill, which brings me back to the parts I have "treated"; I use Cryo-REM, not so much for the benefits/lack of benefits of Cryo Traeting, but I am paying for the Documented Benefits of REM Polishing. Does the cryo help? Not that I can tell (YET). Does it do any harm? Not that I have found. The combined process is a little more expensive than just REM alone, but I am able to work with the vendor and that makes a lot of difference.



Do I plan testing, you bet your butt, but I am still setting up the dyno.

 

4. The physical properties of certain alloys change when they get cold. You must be able to find stories of Guys in northern canada or alaska who have had a chassis crack hitting a curb on a -30 day. If not look up some of the northern towns in siberia. Gets to 50C below, and a pothole will cause a truck to fall apart. I do not know why, but would be interested to find out.





Keep an open mind. Research, make phone calls. The truth must be out there...

[/quote]



Thats because of the ductile-brittle trasition temperature, basicly instead of an ductile fracture which requires a large amount of energy the steel becomes brittle and the energy required to fracture the component is very low. This can be shown with Charpy impact tests. Almost all steels (BCC structure) exhibit this phenomina.

 

So, just as a thought. If you take a component to this point then warm it up again, what happens to the stress points in the matrix? do they start to propagate, then dissipate when returned to room temperature.



I don't know. Its been 15 years since I opened a materials text book. On inspection I can't see why it would be any better than heat cycling the part to remove stresses, but if there is a fundamental change in a parameter of the metal when cold then there is a potential mechanism for something to occur, good or bad.



fascinating...

 

cryo paper



Final year university paper. No commercial axe to grind. Young mind un-sullied by the big bad world. And where the results do not stack up, he notes this.



There is your before and after measurements.

 

http://www.tjwakeman.net/TR/Net_CryoTreatment.htm