Enhancement of Carbonitride Tool— Retained Austenite and Microhardness Prediction

A software simulation tool, CarbonitrideTool, has been developed by Center for Heat Treatment Excellence (CHTE) to predict the Nitrogen and Carbon concentration profiles in selected steels. In this paper, the introduction of the software will be presented. In addition, enhancements have been made to improve the CarbonitrideTool. The diffusion of nitrogen increases the amount of retained Austenite (RA) by changing the Ms temperature. In this paper, the modification has been made to calculate the RA fraction. The empirical prediction of microhardness profile will also be presented. The results of verification experiments will be presented and discussed.