Yes. Experiments will be needed to characterize the phase transformation kinetics, mechanical properties, and thermal properties for heat treatment simulation. The extent of the experiments will be determined by several factors:

1. The chemistry of the new alloy. The closer the chemistry is to an alloy already in the DANTE material database, the fewer the experiments. Most minor changes to chemistry have minor effects on the mechanical and thermal properties. Therefore only the phase transformation timing and strains will need to be determined.
2. The hardenability of the alloy. The more hardenable the alloy, the fewer the experiments needed. For example, an air hardenable steel will only need to examine the martensitic transformation. A high alloy/carbon steel may require only martensite and bainite characterization; and a low alloy/carbon steel will need to characterize martensite, bainite, ferrite, and pearlite.
3. Intended use of the alloy. If the alloy is to be carburized or nitrided, the diffusivity of these elements, including carbide/nitride formation and dissolution, need to be determined. If the processing of the alloy will never produce a particular phase, then that phase can be ignored in the phase transformation characterization. If this is the case, the user must be aware of the modeling limitations imposed by this decision.

DANTE can model most case hardening, thermal, and quench hardening processes. Some case hardening processes include low pressure and gas carburization, gas nitriding, induction, flame, and laser hardening. Quench hardening processes such as immersion into oil, water, or polymer, high pressure gas quenching, press/fixture quenching, and spray quenching. Some other processes that can be modeled include cryogenic treatment, tempering, precipitation hardening, martempering, austempering, normalizing, and annealing. This is not an exhaustive list, so if you have a process that is not listed, contact us. We love to model new and interesting process.

Yes. The format is determined by either ANSYS or ABAQUS, depending on which solver you are using in conjunction with DANTE. We have used Joule heating as a function of time from several different electromagnetic modeling software packages and stress profiles from forming and casting softwares. 

DANTE results can also be used as inputs or initial conditions to other models. Most common is the use of the residual stress from heat treatment as an initial condition to loading or fatigue models. The format again is determined by the FE solver being used for the loading or fatigue models. The version of DANTE linking to ANSYS includes a convenient post processing tool that allows for the generation of a file that writes the residual stress tensor as a function of Cartesian coordinates to a text file, which is then read back into ANSYS Mechanical for loading models. 

Yes. The phase transformation models can properly account for the transition of martensite to tempered martensite. The mechanical model can account for the mechanical property differences between martensite and tempered martensite. The mechanical model can also account for the relaxation of residual stress as carbides precipitate out of the martensite matrix.

High temperature tempering is now also available in DANTE. This model works well for secondary hardening steels, as well as a model for the fast heating rate, short time induction tempering process. These models also account for volume shrinkage seen at tempering temperatures above 300 degrees Celsius.