This work aims to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms impacting distortion by working out the relationships between flow inhomogeneities in an industrial quench tank and the distortion of gear shafts. For this purpose, oil flow-modifying measures are used to induce specific shape changes on case-hardened gear shafts from commercial vehicles. The shape changes are quantified by runout and coordinate measurements.

Oil, polymer, and gas quenching have long been used due to their effectiveness in cooling components rapidly to achieve the desired microstructure. However, they often cause distortion, complicating post-manufacturing corrections. A newer approach, Four-Dimensional Quenching (4DQ), uses high-pressure gas as the quenching medium and allows precise control over gas flow. This method significantly reduces distortion and ensures consistency across components.

As Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods evolve and mature, more engineering problems are being solved through computer simulation to reduce reliance on the costly and time-consuming experimental methods. This trend is also occurring in the gear manufacturing industry, where an increasing number of quality issues related to the oil quenching process are being investigated by CFD methods to find solutions. However, while the CFD theory and numerical methods have made significant advancements, gaps still exist between the academic research and industrial applications. In the case of the oil quenching processes, the prospect of using CFD methods to visualize and study the oil flow pattern in the gear quenching tank is promising yet challenging. The obstacle to simulating the oil quenching process using CFD methods lies not in the numerical method itself for solving the Navier-Stokes equation, but in building a computer simulation model that encompasses all the geometrical details of the quenching tank, fixtures, centrifugal pumps, and gears, including all the gear teeth. This task is particularly challenging for Finite Volume Method (FVM) CFD solvers, as the computation mesh could take days or weeks to build. In this research, a new solution method based on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is introduced to simulate the oil flow in the gear quenching tank. Since SPH is a mesh-free Lagrangian method, it not only greatly simplifies the mesh generation task for building the computational models but also handles the complex physics of the free surface flow and fluid-structure interaction with great ease. In addition, the oil flow in the gear quenching tank usually is driven by centrifugal pumps whose dynamics can be simulated directly in SPH methods, as opposed to FVM methods which require complicated moving mesh computation.

Integral quench furnaces combine the benefits of low-pressure vacuum carburizing (LPC) with atmosphere oil quenching. This paper discusses key milestones in the development of integral quench furnaces and the advantages they provide in annealing, normalizing, and hardening applications.

A number of modifications were made to a batch quenching process for pinion gears to reduce the amount of size change in the ID. This paper assesses the impact of adding vertical plates to the load elevator to better condition oil flow to the stacked part baskets. Data collected from pinion gears before and after the modification show a reduction in the average and range of ID bore change, indicating an improvement in quench uniformity. CFD analyses suggest that improvement is due to a significant reduction in turbulence, resulting from the addition of the vertical plates. As the authors explain, high levels of turbulence promote collapse of the vapor film that occurs at the start of the quench process, and disparity in the timing causes unwanted variation in part size change throughout the load.

Quench oil is susceptible to contamination from carbon deposits, dirt, water, and the byproducts of oxidation. This paper discusses the causes of contamination in quench oil and explains how they lead to reduced oil life, sludge accumulation, loss of production time, unplanned maintenance, variations in the quench curve, surface deposits, and rework costs associated with additional part cleaning. It describes the differences between parts quenched in clean and dirty oil and presents best practices for keeping quench oil clean by removing particulate and water over the course of its life.

In order to use quench oils over extended periods of time, it is necessary to understand how their properties and performance respond to heat and oxidation. This study investigates the effect of thermal and oxidative deterioration on dark and transparent quench oils. It describes the performance and property changes observed using accelerated testing methods and explains how quench oil behaviors in a laboratory setting compare with actual quench furnace usage.

This paper will present the advantages and disadvantages of quenching media options like HPGQ (high pressure gas quenching), Oil and Press Quenching, Austempering (salt) for steel, ADI (austempered ductile iron) and aluminum to achieve certain targets relating to automotive component heat treating. Each heat treating/quenching process provides unique solutions for automobile designers and plant engineers. However, there likely is no single process or material that provides all of the answers that one would desire. Therefore, what process or combination of processes will satisfy the overall need? Detail will be discussed that outlines how OEM’s and heat treaters can and do take advantage of a particular hardening process.

In the heat treating process, it is important for parts to be cooled uniformly in order to reduce distortion while obtaining target hardness. However, it is difficult to cool the parts uniformly due to the presence of the vapor blanket stage in oil quenching. In this study, we investigated the influences of cooling unevenness in various heat treatment conditions, such as the types of oils having different vapor stage lengths, and using varying agitation and oscillation rates with these oils. We found that cooling unevenness was decreased by using the quenching oil with a shorter vapor blanket stage length. Additionally, the cooling unevenness was decreased by agitation and oscillation compared to quenching without agitation. In conclusion, we found selecting a quenching oil with the shortest vapor blanket stage length and combining agitation and oscillation was the most effective method in reducing the distortion of parts after oil quenching.

Case hardening by carburizing is the most common heat treatment in mass production, which relies on atmosphere, or vacuum carburizing followed by oil or gas quenching and finally by tempering. Parts being heat-treated undergo the process in a configuration of a batch consists of hundreds or even thousands pieces. Under these circumstances, individual parts can’t help but be exposed to different process parameters in terms of temperature, atmosphere and quenching depends on their position within the batch. Parts near the outer portion of the load see a more rapid rise in temperature, are first exposed to the carburizing atmosphere and are more effectively quenched than parts located in the center of the batch. This can lead to significant variation from part to part and load to load; the resultant effective case depth deviation can be as high as 50%. Similarly, during quenching from hardening temperature distortion becomes highly unpredictable and unrepeatable. Modern industry demands greater precision and repeatability of results beyond those achievable by so-called traditional batch or continuous technologies and their associated equipment. Elimination of batches and focus on individual parts is the only true way to advance the industry. The article will introduce the first operational system for truly single-piece flow method for case hardening by low-pressure carburizing and hardening by high-pressure gas quench. The system treats each part individually and as such provides virtually identical process parameters, which results in extremely accurate and repeatable results. Quenching one part at a time in a specially design chamber, achieves more precise control and significantly reduces distortion so as to all make it possible to avoid post heat treatment hard machining operations. This single-piece flow heat treatment method is easily adapted into manufacturing and can be directly integrated into in-line manufacturing operations, working directly with machining centers. Materials handling and logistical issues are eliminated thus saving time and reducing unit cost. The results achieved on series of automotive gears will be reported and demonstrate incredible accuracy and repeatability, while significantly reducing distortion. Productivity and process costs prove the system to be highly competitive with other technologies. These proven advantages and savings.

This presentation will discuss data on parts tested in Low Pressure Carburizing using oil and gas quenching. We will present data on metallurgy, distortion and load design to optimize each quenching media. As we know oil and gas quench respond differently, we will explore the evolution of high pressure gas quenching as it exist in today’s market. Low Pressure Carburizing has been growing among OEM’s and now Tier 2 suppliers as well as heat treaters in the Automotive and Aerospace markets. These details should help show the audience that they also can take advantage of the clean environment from Low Pressure Carburizing and just in time processing along with possible distortion control for all their parts currently being atmosphere carburized.

Hardening and case hardening are among the most common types of heat treatment processes, which can be performed in either atmosphere or vacuum furnaces. These processes, followed by oil quenching, are carried out in batch sealed quench and continuous furnaces such as pusher, roller, or rotary hearth types. Atmosphere heat treatment technology and equipment was developed more than 60 years ago with little new product innovation or change since. However, in this time period the needs of manufacturing have changed dramatically, driven by global competitiveness and the drive for lower unit cost. As such the heat treatment solutions must be capable of achieving higher productivity (through shorter cycle times), increased flexibility (with respect to material and process/cycles) and meet higher product quality standards. In addition, today’s manufacturing requires absolute process reproducibility and integration with other manufacturing processes, all done using energy efficient and environmentally friendly equipment. The solution to this situation is modern vacuum furnace technology and vacuum equipment that easily adapts to stringent specifications and changing industry standards. In this discussion, two case studies of this technology are presented. The first includes a two-chamber sealed oil quench vacuum furnace to case harden a SAE 5120 component to a surface hardness of 61 HRC using a Low - Pressure Carburizing (LPC) process. The result was a 30% savings over traditional atmosphere carburizing integral quench furnace owned by a commercial heat treater. The second study involves the use of a three-chamber sealed oil quench vacuum furnace to case harden SAE 5115 steel automotive steering components to an effective case depth of 0.9 mm minimum and a minimum surface hardness of 60 HRC. Using LPC these parameters were easily achievable. By, using a three-chamber sealed oil quench furnace, the potential for up to 600 kg/hr throughput was demonstrated, while maintaining costs comparable to a traditional atmosphere style integral quench furnace. Together, both studies show that sealed oil quench vacuum furnaces can improve process time and quality over a traditional atmosphere integral quench furnace while maintaining the process costs needed to remain competitive.

During the liquid quenching process, there are three main phases between the solid and the liquid interface: film boiling where vapor blanket covers the entire solid structure, transition or nucleate boiling, and single phase convection. The type of the quenching media, the agitation, and the flow pattern of a quench tank have significant effect on the cooling behavior during these three phases, which will affect the cooling rate, phase transformation, stress evolution and shape change of the quenched components. In this paper, transient CFD analysis using AVL FIRE is coupled with heat treatment analysis using DANTE to simulate an oil quench hardening process of a test gear made of Pyrowear 53. The gear is carburized prior to quench hardening. During the coupling analyses, the heat flux between the gear and the oil calculated in the CFD model is applied to the solid heat treatment model, and the gear surface temperature predicted by the heat treatment model is passed back to the transient CFD model. The aforementioned CFD tool is capable of considering the entire quenching domains without considering phase transformations in the quenched components. In the present case the gear is treated with a finite element tool in combination with DANTE to account for the latent heat release, which slows down the cooling. The relations between carbon content, temperature field, phase transformation, internal stress, and shape change during quenching are explained from the heat treatment modeling results. The coupling of CFD and heat treatment analyses provides a more robust application of computer modeling in the heat treatment industry.

An induction hardening operation heat treating engine valves previously used a typical medium speed quenching oil for the quenchant. A change-over to vegetable-based oil was accomplished, with the goal of reducing fire hazards; reducing smoke and fumes; and providing a cleaner working environment. All the desired goals were achieved, with additional advantages of no changes in microstructure, and improved part distortion. This paper compares the physical properties of the two oils, and documents improvements in working environment.

The life of quench oil is dependent upon its thermal stability. The thermal stability is a function of the quality of the base oil, the antioxidant package used, and the presence of heat and catalysts. In this paper, the mechanism of quench oil degradation and the function of antioxidants will be explained.