Date Published: 10/24/2017
Abstract:
Quench hardening is a transient thermal stress process with phase transformations. It is inevitable that a component will go through plastic deformation due to phase transformations, which will lead to distortion in the hardened part. Understanding the sources of distortion is necessary in designing the heat treat process and component configuration to obtain a product with greater dimensional accuracy. It is worth mentioning that consistent distortion can be compensated by adjusting the part dimensions prior to hardening. The possible sources of distortion include residual stresses prior to hardening, heating rate, austenitizing temperature, soaking time, quenching rate and uniformity, and possible tooling constraints, etc. The significance of these effects varies according to the part geometry and heat treatment process. Characterization of material properties and the development of computer modeling made it possible to understand the material and component responses during quench hardening, which is the key to process improvement and part configuration optimization. In this paper, the hardening process of a simplified bevel gear with thin-wall feature made of AISI 9310 is analyzed using DANTE, and the effect of tooling used in a press quench on distortion is investigated. The causes of distortion are analyzed through the material response aspect using the modeling results.
Author: Zhichao Li, Lynn Ferguson, Justin Sims, and Tianyu Yu
Tags: Steel Distortion, AISI 9310 bevel gear, Heat Treatment Modeling, Phase Transformation Model, Steel Deformation, Stress, and Residual Stress
Process Used: Gas Carburization, Oil Quench, and Immersion Quench
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