Abstract
Press quenching is a specialized quenching technique used in heat treating operations to minimize the distortion of complex components such as spiral bevel gears and high quality bearing races. The quenching machine is designed to control the geometrical characteristics of components such as out-of-round, flatness, and (if the tooling is designed to accommodate it) taper. The achievement of final dimensional tolerances is accomplished through a trial and error process where the incoming machined sizes of the components are adjusted based upon measurement data taken from the initial sets of quenched and tempered components that have already been processed through the press quenching operation. Oil flow rates can be altered during the different stages of the quenching cycle, and through the use of specialized tooling the oil flow pathways can be selectively adjusted to meter the oil flow towards specific areas of the part surface while baffling it away from others in order to provide a more uniform overall quench. Complex metallurgical changes take place during austenitizing and quenching, resulting in corresponding mechanical property changes. Accompanying these changes are the generation of thermal and transformation induced stresses, which produce in-process and final residual stresses. During press quenching, dimensional restrictions add additional complexity to the combined effects of thermal and mechanical process sensitivities on these stresses. And if the stresses are severe enough, quench cracking can result. In this investigation the quench cracking of an asymmetrical AISI 52100 bearing ring is evaluated through physical experiments and through corresponding heat treatment process modeling using DANTE. The effects of quench rate, die load pulsing, and several other process variables are examined experimentally and/or analytically to illustrate how they can impact the resulting stresses generated during the press quenching operation.
