This article presents the modes of heat transfer and the stages of cooling during quenching. It provides an overview on the wetting process and then focuses on the evaluation of heat transfer during quenching. It also presents the challenges of thermal process evaluation based on an inverse heat conduction analysis. The article contains a compilation of best practice examples on heat transfer evaluation, which are intended to represent the practical aspects and applicability of the methods aiming the prediction of heat-transfer coefficients.

Flow visualization is an important characterization process to not only understand uniformity of the interfacial cooling mechanisms, but also to characterize the overall impact of agitation on the uniformity of the overall cooling process. This article focuses on thermal flow simulation and visualization in the quenching process. The study presents the effect of bubbling, boiling, and breaking the steam film on the heat-transfer coefficient during the agitated quenching process.

This article focuses on the heat removal stages involved in quenching, and on the experimental setup used for measuring temperature and detecting sound signals with the help of illustrations and curves. The quenching process generates acoustic signals, which are the consequences of the phase transformation of steel and of the boiling process at the interface during the cooling process. The sound-pressure signal is captured by the hydrophone through sound-emission measurements that occur during steel quenching in different quenching media. The analysis of the results offers an interesting approach to evaluation and, more importantly, to monitoring, controlling, and optimizing the entire quenching process.

This article discusses the important characteristics of fluidized beds. The total space occupied by a fluidized bed can be divided into three zones: grid zone, main zone, and above-bed zone. The article discusses the various types of atmospheres of fluidized beds, such as oxidizing and decarburizing atmosphere; nitrocarburizing and nitriding atmosphere; carburizing and carbonitriding atmosphere; and chemical vapor deposition atmosphere. External resistance heating, external combustion heating, internal resistance heating, direct resistance heating, submerged combustion heating, and internal combustion heating can be used to achieve the heat input for a fluidized bed. The article also describes the operations, design considerations, and applications of fluidized-bed furnaces in heat treating. Thermochemical surface treatments, such as carburizing, carbonitriding, nitriding, and nitrocarburizing, are also discussed. Finally, the article reviews the principles and applications of fluidized-bed heat treatment.

Induction heating is a combination of several interrelated physical phenomena, including heat transfer, electromagnetics, and metallurgy. This article presents a brief review of different heat transfer modes, namely, heat conduction, thermal radiation, and convection. It focuses on the specifics of induction heating and heat treating applications. The article discusses the nonlinear and interrelated nature of a particular heat transfer phenomenon, physical property, and skin effect. It also presents simple case studies and general physical laws governing different heat transfer modes. The article also discusses the basic concepts of direct current and alternating current circuits, and reviews the theory of electromagnetic fields.

Temperature is a typical parameter characterizing the heating level of any particle belonging to a heated body. The basic problem of heat transfer computation is associated with appropriate determination of heat transfer coefficients. This article provides a discussion on the basic equations, initial and boundary conditions, and multiple reflection phenomena of mathematical modeling. These boundary conditions include the Dirichlet, Neumann, and Henkel conditions.

Induction heating computations deal with a multiphysics problem containing analysis of several coupled physical fields such as electromagnetic, temperature, mechanical, and metallurgical. In order to solve coupled electromagnetic-temperature field problems, it is necessary to develop suitable algorithms and numerical procedures, which make it possible to deal with these nonlinear coupled problems. This article focuses on the most common approaches to coupled electromagnetic and heat transfer problems, namely, weak-, quasi-, and hard-coupled formulations.

This article describes the mechanisms and characteristics of heat transfer in the quenching of steel. This article describes the characterization of boiling heat transfer, including pool boiling, forced convective boiling, and rewetting, which plays a key role in defining the heat-extraction characteristics of a liquid quenchant. It provides information on heat generated microstructural field evolution and information on the analysis and characterization of heat transfer boundary conditions.

This article provides a discussion on probes for laboratory tests and resultant curves of industrial quenching processes. It describes the scope of the tests, and the calculation of heat-transfer coefficient (HTC) based on the tests. The article highlights the differences between the laboratory tests and characterization of industrial quenching processes. It reviews the importance of initial heat-flux density and first critical heat-flux density. The theoretical principle behind and the purpose of the temperature gradient method are discussed. The article provides information on the design of the probe, heat-extraction dynamics, and influence of wetting kinematics. It also includes discussions on the simplified 1-D temperature-distribution model, calculation of the HTC, and the finite-volume method for the heat-conduction equation.

This article provides an overview of common quenching media, the factors involved in the mechanism of quenching, and process variables, namely, surface condition, mass and section size of the workpiece, and flow rate of the quenching liquid. It describes the methods of quenchant characterization using hardening-power and cooling-power tests. The article discusses the fundamentals involved in heat-transfer coefficient and heat flux of quenching processes. This discussion is followed by various actual examples of applications of these methods using simplified equations. Quenchant evaluation, classification, selection, and maintenance are reviewed in detail. The article addresses the various reasons for quench oil variability and complications due to aging and contamination.

This article provides information on the boundary conditions that must be applied to model the heat-transfer coefficient (HTC) in a component being cooled. It describes the historical perspective of various experiments to determine the HTCs. Computational fluid dynamics codes have also been used to predict the HTCs around a part. The article provides information on the various modeling studies used to predict cooling rates in a component. The prediction of residual stresses by validation and optimization of residual stress models is also discussed. Several techniques, such as models neglecting and incorporating material transformation effects, used to predict residual stresses are reviewed. The article also explains the various aspects of models used to prevent cracking during heating and quenching.

This article provides information on the various stages of quenching, sources of distortion, and factors that affect the creation of thermal gradients. It reviews the various determinations of heat-transfer coefficients by the thermal conductivity and diffusivity method, analytical and empirical methods, application of cooling curves, computational fluid dynamics, and the inverse conduction calculation and measurement of parts. Suitable examples are also provided.

A key aspect of solidification process modeling is the treatment of the interface between the solidifying casting and the mold in which it is contained. This article begins with information on casting-mold interface heat-transfer phenomena. It describes practical considerations and methods for incorporating interface heat-transfer coefficient into models and for quantifying the heat transfer coefficient experimentally. The article concludes with information on the selection of the heat transfer coefficient for a given casting configuration.

This article examines the deformation processes in metal-forming operations and considers the effects introduced by scale factors when microforming. It discusses the process parameters and variables affecting surface interactions, including temperature, speed, reduction, stiffness, and dynamic response of equipment. The article reviews the determination of friction coefficient using laboratory monitoring methods, indirect measurements, and the inverse method. It considers the determination of the interface heat-transfer coefficient by using the ring test and computer simulations. The article describes the behavior of oxide scale on the surface of hot metal undergoing thermomechanical processing. It concludes with information on the effects of process and material parameters on interfacial phenomena.