Quenching
In materials science, quenching is the rapid cooling of a workpiece to obtain certain material properties. A type of heat treating, quenching prevents undesired low-temperature processes, such asphase transformations, from occurring. It does this by reducing the window of time during which these undesired reactions are both thermodynamically favorable, and kinetically accessible; For instance, quenching can reduce the crystal grain size of both metallic and plastic materials, increasing their hardness.