Induction Hardening of Carbon Steel Material: The Effect of Specimen Diameter

Abstract

Induction hardening is well developed technology in many industrial applications, e.g. automotive, tool manufacturing, casting technology, sheet metal forming etc. The surface hardened medium carbon steels are widely used for critical automotive and machine components such as propulsion shafts, crankshafts and steering knuckles which require high fatigue resistance. However, some of small and medium sized enterprises, focused in metal manufacturing in Indonesia have not complete practical knowledge in employing induction hardening to harden the mechanical components. This paper present a technical report of induction hardening process for medium carbon steel material with considering the effect of specimen diameter. The results show that the increase of the specimen diameter increases the current input requirement which also increase the power requirement as a consequence. The induction frequency is automatically decrease when the specimen diameter is increase and resulted in the deeper hardening layer on the surface. The hardness layer of specimen A ranges from outer surface to 6 mm from the surface whereas specimen B ranges from outer surface to 10 mm from the surface from. The micro structure evolution from the surface to the center of the specimen for the both specimen is almost similar. It is mostly affected by the heating temperature and heat distribution from the surface to the center of specimen.