The primary purpose of an annealing treatment is to reduce the hardness of a material and facilitate the progress of subsequent manufacturing operations.
Annealing is commonly used after casting, forging or rolling to soften materials and minimise residual stresses, improve machinability, and increase
ductility by carefully controlling the microstructure. Many steels in strip form are annealed, as are most tool steels and stainless steels.
Non-ferrous alloys are also annealed.