Empirical Determination of the Diffusion Coefficient of Carbon in Austenite in Carburizing Phase of the Gas-Carburizing-Sintering Process

Abstract

Numerical simulation of a mass-diffusion analysis requires several parameters in order to comply with experimental method of gas – carburizing of iron powder compacts. Among the known parameters of mass-diffusion process, the diffusivity is an uncertain parameter in terms of its value. Different formulas can be found in literature but most of them are empirical determined since different results of carbon content are obtained by numerical mass-diffusion analysis. For iron powder compacts with rectangular shape subjected to gas – carburizing – sintering process it was determined the average carbon content in several layers. Based on these determinations and on the characteristics of mass diffusion analysis using Abaqus software it was empirically determined the diffusivity dependency on the carburizing time.