Determination of thermal-hardening stress in steels by use of thermoplasticity theory

Abstract

The problems of quenching-stress analysis are critically reviewed and an adequate simple theory is discussed. The theory accounts for both plasticity and volumetric changes due to phase transformation accompanying the thermal-hardening of a group of simple steels that are characterized by C-shaped time-temperature-transformation diagrams. The volume dilatation in the absence of stress is assumed to be a linear function of the separate specific volumes and weight fractions of the constituents (pearlite, austenite and martensite). With use of the classical relationships of a formal theory of transformation kinetics, the amounts of pearlite and martensite are expressed in terms of the temperature and the temperature-history. The specific forms of such functions are given. In order to account for the influence of phase transformation on plastic properties, the non-isothermal plastic flow-rule is generalized, and a thermal-hardening parameter is introduced which is identified with the amount of pearlite. Variational principles and bounding inequalities associated with the fundamental rate-problem are considered. As an example, the problem for a rapidly, uniformly-cooled half-space is solved. The variations of the residual stress and the final amount of martensite with distance from the outer surface are given, for several values of the rate-of-cooling. The results suggest that the residual stress vanishes on the plane containing approximately 30–35 per cent of martensite.