Induction hardening is widely used in both automotive andaerospace gear industries to reduce distortion and obtain favorableresidual stresses. The heating process during induction hardeninghas a significant effect on the quality of the heat-treated parts,but the importance of the quench portion of the process oftenreceives less attention. However, experiences have shown that thecooling rate, cooling fixture design and cooling duration cansignificantly affect the quality of the hardened parts in terms ofdistortion, residual stresses, as well as the possibility ofcracking. DANTE is a commercial heat treatment software based onfinite element method. In this paper, DANTE is used to study aninduction hardening process for a helical ring gear made of AISI5130 steel. Prior to induction hardening, the helical gear is gascarburized and cooled at a controlled cooling rate. In this study,two induction frequencies in sequential order are used to heat thegear tooth. After induction heating, the gear is spray quenchedusing a polymer/water solution. By designing the spray nozzleconfiguration to quench the gear surfaces with different coolingrates, the distortion and residual stresses of the gear can becontrolled. The crown and unwind distortions of the gear tooth arepredicted and compared for different quenching process designs. Thestudy also demonstrates the importance of the spray duration on thedistortion and residual stresses of the quenched gear.
- Edition:
- 11
- Published:
- 10/01/2011
- Number of Pages:
- 12
- File Size:
- 1 file , 780 KB
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