Normalized steel is cooled in air at a moderate rate, which is faster than furnace cooling but slower than quenching. This rate of cooling influences the phase transformation during solidification.
The cooling rate in normalization affects the phase diagram behavior, effectively shifting the eutectoid point slightly towards the left. As a result, slightly more pearlite is formed compared to very slowly cooled steel, which may allow for the formation of other microstructures like ferrite or coarse pearlite.
This shift in the transformation point increases the fraction of austenite transforming into pearlite before room temperature is reached. Hence, normalized steel ends up with a slightly higher pearlite content.